A Los Angeles judge has hit pause on a massive battery project planned for Acton, siding with local residents who argued the County bent the rules to get it approved.

The project, known as the Humidor Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), was pitched by Hecate Energy.

BESS would have covered about 12 acres of land in east Acton with 440 large battery cabinets, capable of storing enough electricity to power thousands of homes. A new high-voltage transmission line was also planned to connect the site to the grid.

But this week, Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin ruled the County’s approval of the project was improper, according to court documents. The judge said the site’s zoning, labeled “M-1” or Light Industrial, doesn’t actually allow for battery storage facilities.

“I’m very grateful to the community, because I think we all realize that we’ve dodged a bullet on this one,” said Ruthie Brock, the Director of Acton Takes Action, a community task force.

What went wrong

Because the zoning code doesn’t list battery storage as an official land use, County planners tried to treat the project as if it were an electric substation, which is allowed in M-1 zones. That interpretation let them approve the project quickly, without a full environmental study.

Judge Kin said that was a step too far. The zoning code only lets the County stretch the rules in heavier industrial zones, not in Acton’s lighter industrial zone. In short, the County didn’t have the authority to green-light the project where it wanted to put it.

What this means

The ruling wipes out the County’s approval and essentially stops the Humidor project in its tracks. 

“It was truly a David and Goliath story,” said Brock. “The other big deal is there’s a BESS called the ‘Prairie Song Reliability Project’ that is going through the state process, not through LA County approval… they pointed to an interpretation memo, which our lawsuit has just taken the legs out from under… now they can’t rely upon that memo to help them with their approval.”

For now, Hecate Energy can’t move forward in Acton unless it finds another way to meet zoning requirements.

The judge didn’t weigh in on other arguments residents raised, like environmental concerns or consistency with Acton’s rural plan, because the zoning issue alone was enough to strike the project down.

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