California Adopts New Battery Storage Safety Legislation

California has moved battery-storage safety from the fine print of local permits to the center of state law. With Governor Gavin Newsom’s October 8, 2025 signature, Senate Bill 283 (Laird) hard-codes early coordination with local fire authorities, mandates an inspection before energization, and directs building-code updates that will tighten where and how large systems are sited. It’s a direct response to the January 2025 Moss Landing blaze — the fourth incident at that site since 2019 — which triggered evacuations, highway closures, and months of cleanup and battery removal under EPA oversight.

What SB 283 Accomplishes

• Bakes fire-authority engagement into the front end. Applicants must “meet & confer” with the local fire-suppression authority at least 30 days before filing for state certification (CEC) or local approval — elevating fire-department input from courtesy to requirement.

• Creates a pre-operation inspection gate. After installation but before operation, the facility must be inspected by the local fire authority; the inspection is a condition for approval (with limited back-stop if an authority does not act). This closes a long-criticized gap between construction sign-off and real-world commissioning

• Locks the code path to NFPA 855 and Title 24. SB 283 ties safety design and O&M to the most recent NFPA 855 edition (or California Building Standards Code if a new NFPA edition is less than a year old at filing) and instructs OSFM and the Building Standards Commission to ensure the next Title 24 update (post-July 1, 2026) is at least as protective as NFPA 855 — explicitly considering outdoor or dedicated-use, non-combustible buildings for large systems.

• Signals statewide pre-emption. The bill frames BESS safety as a matter of statewide concern, creating a uniform baseline that charter cities and counties cannot under-cut — a critical point for developers navigating dozens of AHJs. (Legislative materials emphasize statewide uniformity and fire-official authority.)

Why Now: the Moss Landing Inflection Point

The January 2025 Moss Landing fire — at one of the world’s largest battery sites — forced evacuations of ~1,200–1,500 residents, shut Highway 1, and led officials to let parts of the fire burn in place. EPA began staged battery removal on September 29, 2025 and continues to supervise site work. The visibility of the incident, and the repeat-event history at Moss Landing, created political momentum for statute-level reforms rather than incremental guidance.

The Other Moving Pieces: CPUC and OSFM Moves in Motion

SB 283 lands atop a series of 2025 actions that extend beyond construction:

• CPUC modified General Order 167 (now GO 167-C) to explicitly cover energy storage systems statewide — not just utility-owned assets — and to require emergency response/action plans with enforceable maintenance and operations standards. This materially expands operational oversight.

• OSFM signaled early adoption of forthcoming NFPA 855 provisions in the 2026 code cycle (effective July 1, 2027), coordinating a path for Title 24 updates that reflect the newest ESS learnings.

What Changes for Market Participants

Developers & EPCs. Expect earlier scoping with fire departments (at least 30 days pre-application), formal pre-energization inspections, and code-driven design pivots: more outdoor/containerized layouts and dedicated-use, non-combustible buildings for large MWh blocks. These steps add time and non-hardware cost but reduce late-stage surprises and redesigns.

Local jurisdictions & fire authorities. The law hands local fire officials both an upstream seat and a downstream gate. That improves incident-readiness but also creates potential bottlenecks if staffing, training, and checklists don’t scale with applications. The statute’s structure implies the state may need to support AHJs (templates, standard checklists, and training) to keep projects moving.

Financiers & insurers. Compliance with NFPA 855/Title 24, documented meet-and-confer, and successful fire-inspection will become standard conditions precedent. Expect diligence lists to reference GO 167-C obligations (ERPs/EAPs, O&M records), pushing developers to demonstrate operational maturity before close. Pricing of risk — and coverage availability — will track adherence to the new regime.

Grid planning. California still targets massive storage build-out (tens of gigawatts by 2045). SB 283 introduces friction — time and soft costs — but also de-risks deployment at scale. A uniform baseline should reduce jurisdictional roulette and, over time, shorten variance fights that have quietly delayed projects.

Bottom Line

SB 283 doesn’t merely raise the bar; it re-orders the workflow. Developers must treat fire-safety as a first-class design input and an explicit commissioning gate, not an afterthought of electrical or building permits. Financing will normalize around this standard, and project designs will tilt toward outdoor or dedicated-use, non-combustible configurations. California’s storage trajectory — still aimed at enormous volumes by 2045 — will continue, but with clearer rules and fewer gray areas. Given the state’s gravitational pull on North American storage markets, expect SB 283’s architecture to become a model for other jurisdictions grappling with the same trade-off: deploy fast, but deploy safely.