ALBANY, New York (WWNY) – Senator Mark Walczyk is worried.

“How many battery fires in the state of New York will New Yorkers have to suffer if your plan sees through in the state,” said Walczyk, R-49th Senate District.

That’s a question directed at William Acker, the Executive Director of the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium.

In 2026, Governor Hochul plans to push for more wind and solar energy, and with it would come lithium-ion battery arrays to store that power, arrays like the ones that sparked a multi-day fire at a Town of Lyme solar farm back in 2023.

“The toxic chemicals that go along with a battery fire could be dangerous to human health at a very low 30 parts per million. At those levels, you can’t taste it. You can’t smell it. You don’t know that it’s there,” said Walczyk.

Acker argued that precautions would be in place at any battery storage facility and stressed the reliability of the technology.

“Texas already has more batteries deployed than our entire goal of 6 gigawatts. You haven’t heard of a single one there, so there are rare events,” said Acker.

But Walczyk says that explanation doesn’t cut it.

“Lyme only has one battery facility, and so far that facility has caught fire,” said Walczyk.

Instead, he’d like to see the state take a different path.

“I’m saying full brake on all of this. Let’s do some things that we know will work. Let’s take the taxes and fees and things off of people’s energy bills now, and let’s finally drive down the price of energy in New York,” said Walczyk.

Since 2023, lithium-ion battery storage facilities have caught fire on four separate occasions in New York State.

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