Comal County Commissioners Court approves economic development incentive agreement for battery storage facility

Comal County Commissioners Court unanimously approved an eight-year Chapter 381 Economic Development Incentive Agreement between Ebony Energy Storage, a wholly owned subsidiary of Plus Power, LLC, and Comal County for a battery storage facility on Jan. 19.

The battery storage facility will be located at 19315 Marbach Lane in San Antonio, which is in Comal County and Comal ISD. The facility will house energy and store it in the batteries during nonpeak power usage periods to make energy more available to utility providers.

“Hopefully that will be able to help Comal County when we’re short or anybody else and their shortage,” Commissioner Scott Haag said.

If Ebony Energy Storage complies with its obligations under the agreement’s term—an eight-year contract—Comal County will rebate the real and personal property ad valorem tax revenues at a rate of 54% for those eight years.

“We will establish a baseline value, which is the value the year before they start going and making all the improvements. So it will probably be the 2022 value or possibly the 2023 [value]. Once they start making all the improvements to the site, then it's the increment between that baseline and the amount after they make the improvements that is covered by this agreement,” County Judge Sherman Krause said. “So, for example, just to put some dollars to it, if the property taxes are $50 in the baseline year, and there are $100 in the first year that the improvements are in place, then we would rebate 54% of that back to them. So in that case it would be $54.”

According to agenda documents, the project will give Ebony Energy the ability to expand its operations to provide a “more efficient and reliable electrical grid by constructing a 200-megawatt, 400-megawatt hour lithium-ion battery energy storage facility.”

Ebony Energy consultant Eric Williams noted the property is estimated to generate roughly $1.8 billion in additional tax revenue for the first 15 years of the property’s life.

The project will create some temporary jobs during the six-month construction period of the project and is also slated to provide new real and personal property ad valorem tax revenues in the county.

The construction for this project will begin no later than Dec. 31.