TALBOT COUNTY, Ga. (WTVM) – Talbot County planning officials are drafting new zoning language to regulate large battery energy storage systems after a private company called to ask about building one in the county, even though no formal application has been filed. The move came up Monday night at a planning meeting, where staff said the inquiry revealed a gap in the local zoning code. Allison Slocum of the River Valley Regional Commission told the board and public that a phone call from a prospective developer exposed the problem. “We’ve just had someone call saying that they were interested in building one in the county,” Slocum said. “We looked at our ordinance and realized our ordinance did not reflect that land use at all.” Battery energy storage systems are industrial facilities that store electricity. They differ from data centers, which process, store and route data. The two types of facilities are often used together to manage heavy power demands. Talbot County already has one battery storage facility, built by Georgia Power in North Talbot. Because Georgia Power operates as a utility, it was not required to follow local zoning rules. A private developer would be. Staff are now drafting a “text amendment”, new language that would spell out where battery storage sites can be located and under what conditions. At Monday’s meeting, Slocum and board members focused on safety and neighbor impacts, including construction traffic, road damage, fire protection and…
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