Insurance and Financial Responsibility
What King County requires
Ordinance 19824 sets a flat $1 million financial responsibility threshold for BESS facilities with thermal runaway risk, regardless of facility size or location. A 2 MWh system and a 520 MWh facility have the same floor. An earlier draft of the ordinance required financial responsibility based on a study of maximum potential damages. The adopted version replaced that with a flat cap.
What that costs
Financial responsibility bonds are priced at roughly 30-40 cents per $100 of insured value. A $1 million bond costs about $3,000-4,000 per year. On a $100M+ project, that is negligible.
What facility insurance costs
Lithium-ion BESS facility insurance runs 0.3-1.2% of total project value annually. For a $100M facility, that’s $300,000-1.2 million per year. Pricing depends on battery chemistry, system design, monitoring, spacing between units, and fire department coordination.
The insurance market after Moss Landing
Vistra wrote off $400 million from the Moss Landing fire (January 2025) and expects to recover a significant portion through property damage and business interruption insurance. Despite this, industry insurers characterize Moss Landing as “impactful but not defining,” and rates have remained stable at 30-40 cents per $100 of insured value.
What is changing:
- Standard liability policies exclude pollution and environmental contamination. That coverage must be purchased separately.
- Indoor NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) installations: many underwriters are reluctant or refusing coverage.
- Insurers are requiring more documentation before writing policies: UL 9540A fire testing proof, thermal management plans, fire department pre-incident coordination.
How this compares to actual cleanup costs
| Incident | Facility Size | Estimated Cleanup Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Moss Landing, CA (2025) | 300 MW | Tens of millions (EPA-ordered, ongoing). Vistra $400M writeoff. |
| Gateway, San Diego (2024) | 250 MW | EPA-ordered cleanup, cost not yet public |
King County’s $1 million threshold would not cover a fraction of either cleanup.
Who pays when something goes wrong
The project entity for Cascadia Ridge is Cascadia Ridge Resiliency LLC, a Delaware limited liability company formed December 19, 2023 (originally under the name “Snoqualmie Energy Storage LLC,” renamed June 2025). It is a single-purpose entity created solely for this project. Its sole governor, as of a June 2025 amendment, is another entity: Cascadia Ridge Resiliency Holdings LLC, which is not registered in Washington.
Jupiter Power LLC, the parent developer, was acquired by BlackRock Alternatives in November 2022. At least five corporate layers separate BlackRock from the project entity. Each layer is a separate legal entity that serves as a liability firewall. The project entity’s capitalization is not publicly disclosed.
Jupiter Power’s project financing for other BESS projects (a $286M package for projects in Michigan and Texas) pledges all project assets to construction lenders. If the same structure is used here, construction lenders have first claim on everything the project entity owns. Environmental remediation claims and community damages are structurally subordinate to project debt.
For comparison, PSE’s other 2024 RFP counterparties are NextEra Energy (NYSE: NEE, Fortune 200, approximately $190B market cap) and Avangrid, a subsidiary of Iberdrola (publicly traded multinational utility). Both have public financial reporting and investment-grade credit. Jupiter Power has neither. It is the only counterparty in PSE’s current procurement portfolio where the public cannot verify the project entity’s capitalization, insurance adequacy, or financial staying power.
No federal regulator has ever reviewed Jupiter Power’s corporate structure. The company does not hold FERC market-based rate authority (because it operates under tolling agreements, not wholesale power sales), so the corporate organization disclosures that FERC requires of wholesale sellers have never been made.
King County does not require BESS developers to demonstrate financial capacity, post a decommissioning bond, provide a parent company guarantee, or disclose the capitalization of the project entity. The $1 million bond is the entire financial accountability framework.
PSE originally filed the tolling agreement with the UTC redacted in its entirety (Docket UE-240532). A partially redacted version was later secured, but the insurance requirements, indemnification clauses, parent company guarantees (if any), and decommissioning obligations remain redacted. PSE filed suit on April 9, 2026 (PSE v. WUTC, Thurston County Superior Court) to prevent further disclosure.
Sources: Washington Secretary of State (CCFS, UBI 605 601 677), SEC EDGAR (Lazard 8-K, BlackRock 8-K), Jupiter Power $286M financing announcement, UTC Docket UE-240532.
Sources
- Beyond the headlines: The BESS insurance market after Moss Landing (Energy-Storage.News)
- Battery energy storage systems insurance (Amwins)
- Battery storage insurance requirements in 2026 (Solarif)
- Battery storage insurance cost and coverage (Elemental Risk Management)