Griffith Battery Energy Storage System

Date: 29th November 2025
To: Pragya Mathema

Re: Development Application for Battery Storage Unit – 19 Bob Irvin Road, Yoogali
I am writing to lodge a strong objection to the proposed Eku Energy battery storage facility at 19 Bob Irvin Road, Yoogali. This development carries significant and unreasonable risks to local residents, infrastructure, farmland, and the long-term character of our community.
1. Impact on Property Values and Residential Amenity
Installing a large-scale industrial battery facility in what has always been a rural area will undoubtedly diminish surrounding property values. Prospective buyers are often discouraged by noise, industrial appearance, and perceived safety risks associated with high-energy infrastructure.
Families who have invested heavily in the region for its peaceful environment and scenic rural landscape now face the prospect of permanent industrialisation directly on their doorstep—reducing the financial and lifestyle value of their homes.
2. Worsening Conditions on an Already Failing Road (Bob Irvin Road)
Bob Irvin Road is an unsealed gravel road that already struggles under current residential, business and agricultural traffic. It generates significant dust, which spreads across neighbouring homes, crops, sheds, vehicles, and soils rainwater tanks. These dust clouds already impact residents’ health, comfort, and agricultural operations. Residents are forever cleaning and washing vhenicles and the internals of their home due to the dust residue that enters the properties. Introducing large construction trucks, cranes, oversize loads, and ongoing service vehicles will escalate dust generation dramatically, further degrading air quality and making daily living increasingly difficult for those nearby. Additionally, even moderate rainfall turns Bob Irvin Road into a slippery, untrafficable track. Residents frequently experience vehicles sliding, mud build ups, poor access conditions, and long delays when the road is then re-formed. A project of this scale will amplify these issues, creating serious safety hazards for local residents and workers alike and placing additional strain on an already fragile road system.
3. Noise Pollution and Industrial Disturbance
Battery storage facilities operate around the clock. Cooling fans, ventilation systems, transformers, and inverters generate ongoing mechanical noise that travels easily across open rural landscapes—particularly at night.
Construction noise, including heavy machinery, reversing alarms, earthworks, and extended work hours, will further disturb the peace for months on end. This is wholly incompatible with the quiet rural lifestyle currently enjoyed by the community.
4. Dust, Air Quality, and Broader Environmental Impacts
The project involves extensive earthmoving, soil disturbance, and truck movements, all of which will worsen dust conditions for nearby homes.
Without comprehensive, enforceable dust suppression measures, residents will face contaminated rainwater, reduced air quality, impacts on gardens and crops, and general degradation of living conditions.
5. Loss of Highly Fertile Irrigation Land
The proposed site sits on productive, highly fertile irrigation land—one of the most valuable and reliable agricultural resources in NSW. Yoogali and its surrounding districts rely on this type of land for fruit, vegetable, and cropping operations essential to the local economy. Removing this land from agricultural use for an industrial energy facility is a significant and long term loss of agriculture potential. At a time when food security and sustainable farming are more critical than ever, sacrificing irrigated agricultural land for non-agricultural private infrastructure is both short-sighted and damaging to the community’s economic future.
6. Loss of Rural Character and Increased Industrialisation
The development marks a major shift in land use from rural-residential and agricultural to industrial. This change brings high fencing, bright lighting, electrical infrastructure, increased traffic, and noise into a peaceful area.
Such industrial creep threatens the long-term identity of the region, pushing residents toward an environment they never agreed to live in.


Conclusion
The proposed Eku Energy battery storage facility at 19 Bob Irvin Road poses unacceptable impacts: degrading property values, worsening road safety and dust, generating noise pollution, removing valuable irrigation farmland, and permanently altering the rural character of Yoogali.
For these reasons, I strongly urge the the matters in raised in this letter to be adequately addressed or reject this development application.
At the very least, a more rigorous, transparent, and community-focused assessment must be undertaken before any approval is considered.
Thank you for considering this submission.
Sincerely,
Luke & Andreha Tedesco
97 Bob Irvin road
Yoogali NSW 2680
[email protected]

Independent research warns that mega-scale BESS fires exceed firefighting capabilities and have life threatening, poisonous impacts for human beings and biodiversity, while the NSW Government is hastily and irresponsibly approving these dangerously volatile projects without doing their due diligence.

This horrific failure in their duty of care to the people of NSW/Australia - in spite of the catastrophic impacts - just to appease vested interests - is outrageous and must be condemned.

“Safety of Grid Scale Lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352158070_Safety_of_Grid_Scale_Lithium-ion_Battery_Energy_Storage_Systems

This horrible plan is for toxic pollution that lingers for generations - defying all the Principles of Ecologically Sustainable Development - including the Precautionary Principle and Intergenerational Equity.

Hazardous Battery fires disperse microscopic heavy metals and fluorinated compounds that are highly toxic, bioaccumulate, evade detection, and leave no viable cleanup pathway - resulting in toxic wasteland and public health and safety disasters.

This CCP reliant, filthy rip-off, BESS plan’s ridiculously short 10 year life span and endless replacement makes no sense!
It defies all aspects of the National Electricity Law Objective regarding:-
(a) price, quality, safety, reliability and security of supply of electricity;
and
(b) the reliability, safety and security of the national electricity system

This BESS creates a cycle of constant replacement, contamination, ever escalating toxic waste and austerity from rising costs.

There are no benefits whatsoever from this ruinable junk that’s a poisonous curse to the public, our essential energy security, food security, our economy and sovereignty.

The predatory vested interests are manipulating the market - profiteering at our expense - while we all suffering the Government inflicted Cost of Living Crisis - caused by intermittent RenewaBULLs and BESS that profits from price volatility and arbitrage, distorting electricity markets and increasing costs for consumers.

I would like to make you aware that BESS batteries burn with a temperature of 900C degrees and can burn for up to a week. These batteries have to burn themselves out. It is environmentally dangerous to have a burning BESS spewing dangerous chemical into the atmosphere, across agricultural crops ( used for food production ) as well as contaminating animals and humans. It is in my opinion, something so dangerous and untested it should not be placed anywhere. THE RISK IS TO GREAT.

Loading shipping containers with lithium ion batteries will be a toxic time bomb. Unrecyclable, environmentally destructive mining process for materials for BESS, diesel generators required to ensure batteries are cooled, thermal runaway risk, community expected to fight any fire in this project without adequate resources, training or PPE. This project is designed to profit the project owner. This project is not designed to preserve the environment or provide reliable and affordable electricity to consumers.

I object and do NOT consent to this project for the following reasons:

The fact that this project and other similar renewable projects are connected to potentially flammable and dangerous high voltage transmission lines and towers. For example:

Just over sixteen years ago, on the 7th of February 2009, 6 out of the 11 Black Saturday fires that took 173 lives and did untold damage to property, livestock and wildlife, were started by high voltage transmission lines. This was such a devastating, large scale catastrophe that a Royal Commission was called to investigate why these fires happened and how they could be prevented in the future - VBRC_Summary_PF.pdf, Remembering Black Saturday - 15th anniversary | Emergency Victoria. 

Cameron Stuart of Brittanica.com on the 20th of January 2025 (Black Saturday bushfires | Causes, Deaths, Map, & Location | Britannica), described the horrific, catastrophic, devastating Black Saturday fires in detail:

"On February 7 Victorians were told to brace for the “worst day” in the state’s history: weather forecasters warned of a record heat wave with temperatures soaring to 115.5 °F (46.4 °C), combined with gale-force winds of up to 56 miles (90 km) per hour. That day more than 47 major fires erupted across the state, 14 of them claiming lives or causing significant damage. The most deadly conflagration, known as the Kilmore East fire, which claimed 121 lives, was sparked by a faulty power pole near the township of Kilmore East, 37 miles (60 km) north of Melbourne. The flames quickly jumped a major highway and roared into a forest, where they turned into a giant fireball, dwarfing the resources of local firefighters, who could only flee in its path. Aided by steep slopes and powerful winds, this fire raced through a series of townships, including Kinglake (where 38 people died), Strathewen (27 perished), and St. Andrews (12 were killed), catching residents by surprise and trapping many in their homes. Some sought to escape by car as the fires approached, but dozens died on the roads as they were overtaken by the fire, which leapt 330 feet (100 metres) above the tree line and was powerful enough to kill with radiant heat from nearly 1,000 feet

Late in the afternoon a sudden change in wind direction pushed the fire to the northeast, bringing new towns into its path. A parallel fire, known as the Murrindindi fire, also blew to the northeast, swallowing the unsuspecting tourist town of Marysville, where 34 people lost their lives. Fire experts said that these two fires alone released energy equivalent to that of 1,500 atomic bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan."

Fire experts said that these two fires alone released energy equivalent to that of 1,500 atomic bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan."

Not only are lithium battery factories extremely dangerous, but they are also deadly Lithium battery factory fire kills 22 in South Korea. 

In California, it was reported that it was PG&E's powerlines that had sparked the recent horrific and deeply devastating fires - , How Did The California Wildfires Start? Officials Weigh Power Lines, Fireworks—And Arson (forbes.com), PG&E’s Lengthy Record of Starting Wildfires, and What the Company Is Doing to Change It (californialocal.com) and in fact, PG$E was found to be responsible for the worst fire in California history - the Camp Fire (Customers of PG&E, other utilities pay billions for wildfire prevention- CalMatters)

"POWER LINES AND ELECTRIC INFRASTRUCTURE
----------------------------------------

Multiple residents of Altadena sued Southern California Edison on Monday, alleging the Eaton Fire was started by the company’s electrical equipment. The lawsuits cite eyewitness reports of sparking power lines. The company has pushed back against the theory, saying in a statement Sunday its “analysis shows no interruptions or operational/electrical anomalies in the 12 hours prior to the fire’s reported start time until more than one hour after the reported start time of the fire.” One of the filed complaints reportedly alleged, “there is clear evidence from video footage, photographs, and witness accounts that the fire was caused by electrical equipment operated by Defendants Edison International and Southern California Edison.” Power infrastructure has been a leading cause of fires in California in the past—with eight of the state’s 20 most destructive fires having power-related causes—and the amount of fires started by equipment has grown recently, The New York Times reported."

Interestingly enough,, prior to the recent wildfires in California, PG&E had a mitigation plan, which as you can very plainly see did NOT stop the extremely horrific, deadly and destructive California Wildfires from happening, much less actually put them out, and so now, what will happen to all the taxpayers who lost their homes, livelihoods, pets, etc because of PG&E's powerlines sparking the tremendously fast moving fires throughout Southern California, doing untold damage, along with taking lives?  (TN13803_20240402T112956_PGE's_2025_Wildfire_Mitigation_Plan_Update.pdf).

And then there is the astronomical and, in my opinion, completely irresponsible and unjustifiable cost of these renewables:

Stated in the 2025 SUBMISSION TO CSIRO'S DRAFT 2024-25 GENCOST REPORT.pdf

"3.0 Capital Cost Factors GenCost defines future capital cost factors 6 for various generation and storage technologies. It observes recent years when freight and raw materials rapidly increased costs. Its use of a 2006 to 2009 price bubble to show prices returned to previous expectations is not entirely realistic since the industry was much smaller at that time and basic power costs affecting manufacturing have been recently escalating much more rapidly. GenCost’s contention that “…inflationary pressures for most technologies and the cost of some…such as solar PV and batteries are falling again” is contestable. We believe this is only a small part of the story. In our view: • Renewables are now relatively mature technologies after 30 years of intensive development, thus making assumptions of substantial future cost decreases too optimistic. • Labour costs have been hit with high inflation recently; these costs are not going to go down. • The dominance of one country, China, in the entire supply chain for renewables makes higher future prices likely as competition is stifled and hence deserves more careful analysis. • Increasing demand in global markets may cause price rises. • Shipping costs are being hit by increasing fuel costs. • Operating costs of renewables are greater than anticipated, as the UK and Germany have found. • Subsidies for the cheapest form of electricity generation, which surely should not still be necessary) could be reduced, adding to manufacturing costs. Compounding the uncertainties in predicting future costs are: a. realisation that the extraordinary costs involved are not affordable nor sustainable, b. the negative impact on national economies from unreliable intermittent power, c. many countries, including the largest, doing nothing or very little, to meet Net Zero goals, d. the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Accord, e. the mounting market failure of EVs, f. recognition that the science of climate catastrophism is overstated and overhyped, and g. the severe environmental impacts of solar and wind generation installations being regarded as unacceptable. 6 GenCost Section 5 P3"

This report/submission was written by 19 independent engineers and professionals who are all well qualified to comment on the true costs of implementing the government’s Net Zero 2050 policy for the National Electricity Market (NEM):

Professor Michael Asten, PhD, BSc (Hon), BLitt, FRAS Ben Beattie, BE(Elec), CPEng RPEQ Jeremy Barlow, BE, MBA, FAIMM William Bourke, BSc, BEng (Aero), MEng Sc. Michael Bowden IEng (Electronics-UK); CPL; CQP Rafe Champion, MSc (History and Philosophy of Science), B.Ag.Sc. (Hons) Arthur Day, PhD, BSc (Hon) Paul R C Goard, BSc, Physicist, M.A.I.P., M.I.of P., M.A.I.E., M.A.M.O.S. Peter J F Harris, BEng, Dipl. Prod Eng. Professor Emeritus Aynsley Kellow, BA(Hons) PhD Bryan Leyland, MSc (Power systems) DistFEngNZ, FIMechE, FIEE (rtd) John McBratney, B. Tech (Electronic Engineering), formerly MIE Aust, MIEEE John McLean, PhD Paul Miskelly, BE MEngSc Electrical Engineering Grant Piper, BE Aero UNSW, FRAeS, Chair NREN Peter Ridd, PhD, BSc James R (Jim) Simpson, (Ret., former business unit manager, OTC & Telstra) Bill Stinson, Dip.Tech(Building), B.AppSc.(Building), Dip Labour Relations & Law, Cert. Design Sc. (Facilities) James Taylor, PhD, MSc, BEng Elect (Hon), PEng, FCASI

In addition, developers, NOT landowners, farmers or people who host renewables should be made to not only pay full decommission costs of these renewables, they also should be held solely responsible, along with the planning commission and government to ensure that no electrical bushfires breaks out of the renewables, high voltage transmission lines and towers, wind turbines, Battery storage units, solar "farms" (farms is a misnomer indeed) and any other energy infrastructure, NOT landowners, farmers or people who host renewables. https://braddonbeagle.com/do-we-have-a-do-as-i-do-or-do-as-i-say-government-you-decide/

Another foreign developer seeking to profit from energy consumers and taxpayers while destroying our environment. So these rent seekers reckon this project "has the storage capacity to serve over 88 per cent of daily electricity demand from the Griffith LGA". A quick search (yep...using AI...there is no law against using AI, bet EKU Energy use AI) indicates that the Griffith population is 26994, and industries include the poultry group Baiada and wineries Casella and De Bortoli. How will this BESS provide 88% of daily electricty demand during periods when solar generation is low due to cloudy weather? Or wind droughts? Or the combination of wind droughts and low solar periods? Or will the diesel generators be going flat out during these periods? For how many years will this BESS be effective? What happens to the obsolete batteries? Where do the batteries come from? How are the raw materials mined and where from? How many diesel generators will be on site? How much diesel will be used in the day to day operation of the BESS? How long will it be before Baiada, Casella and De Bortoli find the prohibitive costs of electricity mean that their businesses are no longer sustainable? How many residents of the Griffith LGA trust this BESS to supply 88% of their electricity needs or have they already installed their own rooftop solar and domestic batteries and diesel generators?

Contamination and Waste Management are issues that are being swept under the carpet. It’s time government stop putting renewable energy targets ahead of the nation’s public health and food security. Please refer to attachment:

This plan must not be approved as Thermal Runaway Fires burn for days - billowing poisonous smoke and releasing irreversibly contaminating residue - affecting vast areas and poisoning the public.

CSIRO explicitly states there is no certified method to extinguish lithium-ion battery fires, meaning failures escalate into uncontrollable thermal runaway events.
CSIRO Advisory Note AN-004 – Extinguishment of Lithium-Ion Battery Fires

These batteries last on average 9 years only and therefore have to be replaced every 10 years. This will ensure the price of electricity to consumers will remain high to pay for the infrastructure.
Lithium ion batteries have a propensity to catch fire and when fires happen they produce very toxic gases and dangerous chemicals that pollute the countryside and and water.

This plan breaches the Government’s Primary Duty of failing to protect its citizens from the obvious National Security Risks from CCP produced/controlled BESS infrastructure and the highly toxic, Fire hazardous nature of this BESS.

Knowingly introducing such toxic fire risk, cyber vulnerability, and infrastructure fragility in pursuit of ideological energy targets is completely irresponsible and unacceptable.

This BESS plan is intrinsically Toxic, experimental and unsafe technology.

Lithium-ion batteries are chemically unstable, release poisonous gases and persistent pollutants, and create long-term contamination risks when they fail.

“Forever Chemicals’ used in Lithium-ion Batteries Threaten Environment”
The Guardian, 14 July 2024

This insecure CCP reliant BESS plan is an open invitation for a catastrophic, sabotaging, Critical-Infrastructure attack on Australia’s Electricity Grid.

It’s extremely treacherous that this untrustworthy Government are relying on Chinese BESS that embed CCP-manufactured, networked hardware into Australia’s grid while lacking robust, transparent cyber-security requirements.

Western intelligence agencies are constantly warning that Chinese hackers actively target energy infrastructure they produce - like this unethical, insecure plan that would illogically expand our exposure - threatening national security.
(PBS News, 2024 - FBI Director Christopher Wray warning)

It is totally illogical to plan to fail so extensively - with an intermittent, weather dependent Solar/Wind/BESS ‘Transition’ that DOESN’T WORK MOST OF THE TIME, that has an endless and irreversibly poisonous, monumental footprint that is ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR THE GREATER GOOD.

CCP produced, toxic contaminating BESS like this unethical project are putting Australian people at extreme risk and hardship by subjecting Australia to a National Security Nightmare.
Just like Reuters’ confirmed undocumented communication devices inside Chinese inverters - validating fears of hidden access and sabotage capability.
(“Rogue Communication Devices Found in Chinese Inverters”- Reuters, 14 May 2025)

I Object on the following grounds:
• It is destructive to native flora and fauna and harmful to the public;
• Construction will leave a legacy of land destruction that is unlikely to be rectified by the builder;
• It is an abomination on the natural landscape;
• It is part of a system that costs billions, does not work reliably and attempts to solve a problem that does not exist, in other words useless and irresponsible use of public funds;
• All such infrastructures should be built at developer’s expense, NOT on public funds.
We are told wind and solar are the cheapest, well prove it, remove all subsidises - do not build this system on public funds;
• The TOTAL cost has not been verified by independent experts;
• There is NO verified scientific basis for reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere so this project is a total waste of public money, along with all other such projects.  There is in fact reliable verifiable scientific proof that CO2 is beneficial to plant life and by extension to human life on earth.

This as a disastrous plan as independent energy analysts describe modern renewable-battery systems as “beautifully hackable”, prioritising remote control over security.
(Irina Slav – Beautifully Hackable, 12 Aug 2024)