The Town of Gardiner took two steps toward establishing regulations for battery energy storage systems at a special Town Board meeting June 30, closing the public hearing on a moratorium extension and reaching agreement on a draft framework for a future law.

“This is still in the drafting stage; I need some things to work with to be able to write a draft, and then that draft will be available for other people to come in,” Board member Jim Ulvestad said. “They can say, ‘Well, I see all these things in this presentation, but now that I’m looking at it, it’s not really good enough here.’”

Discussion of battery energy storage systems, known as BESS sites, has been ongoing in the town since 2025. The sites contain large, industrial-scale rechargeable batteries that collect and store electricity, then release it back into the power grid during periods of high demand or outages.

The town’s current zoning law, adopted in 2008, does not include regulations for the installation, siting, screening or use of utility-scale BESS sites. To address the gap, Ulvestad presented a proposal outlining restrictions on zoning, noise levels and building heights for future BESS development.

“It should be bigger than we have currently for residential districts,” Ulvestad said of the proposed zoning and height allowances. “I recommend following our current zoning laws in the sense that these container systems are basically containers 20 feet long by nine feet wide by nine feet high.”

The board approved a six-month extension of the moratorium on battery energy storage systems, giving officials additional time to revise the draft law. Under the timeline Ulvestad presented, a full draft is expected to be submitted for review in September or October, followed by a public hearing in November. Any necessary revisions would follow, with a vote on the law potentially coming in December.