09/16/2026
Dear Rock Island County Neighbors and Friends:
Yesterday, the Rock Island County Farm Bureau hosted a meeting regarding the Battery Energy Storage System.
Does the Farm Bureau believe that anything other than FARMING is a good use for our nutrient-rich, beautiful, black-soil, Rock Island County farmland? Ask a member.
Last month, a Rock Island County employee appeared in an interview on WQAD and tried to persuade the viewers that this utility-grade battery storage system is an important part of a green energy strategy or energy would run out.
What green energy will this BESS system capture? (Also, what department in the Rock Island County Office Building employs energy experts?)
Have you had a rolling blackout recently? Didn't we just read that the Quad Cities Clean Energy Center (Nuclear Power Plant) is expanding?
The BESS proposed for 14th Street W, just south of the Village of Milan and one mile from over 500 schoolchildren, is one of the only systems in Illinois not located on the same site as alternative energy generation such as windmills or solar.
(Rock Island County actually has ZERO wind farms.)
So, if it is not co-located with sources of green energy, how will it capture green energy?
Tiger Energy’s very own traveling salesman, William Peregoy, said this system is an important part of Illinois' green energy initiatives. In his next breath, he said Tiger Energy will buy energy at night when it is cheap and sell it back to the grid during the day when demand and prices are high.
You do not have to be an energy expert to deduce that solar panels don't produce green energy at night when there is no sun. Wind speed is also lowest at night. Wind farms produce the least, if any, energy at night.
The location Tiger Energy has chosen on 14th Street W. is not near a source of green energy whatsoever. It is near a substation and a very large transmission line. A transmission line that moves large volumes of energy produced by natural gas, coal, and nuclear power.
This is the energy Tiger Energy will buy while you are sleeping and sell back to you during the day, when prices are highest. That’s not green energy.
That is called Peak Shaving. Look it up.
It is a financial strategy, not an alternative energy strategy.
Large hedge funds will benefit from this strategy, not the Rock Island County energy consumer.
Energy skimmed off the top may not be sold back to Rock Island County at all. Strategies also exist where this same energy could be purchased from rural sites, where energy is historically cheap, and sold to larger urban markets where energy is much more expensive.
One final thought. Mr. William Perepoy, who is a civil engineer by trade, was honest about one thing. The entire utility-grade battery storage system proposed for 14th Street W., in lower Rock Island County, will take most of a night to charge, and two hours to discharge.
That’s right. The entire system provides no more than TWO HOURS of energy each day.
Rock Island County knows it. Even Robert Eckhart, the landowner from Davenport, IA, knows it.
But there is just too much money (lease, rent, taxes) to really pay attention to facts, health, and safety.
BESS systems can play an important role in a reliable green energy strategy. (Co-located with alternative energy production) And in some locations, the risk is worth the benefits.
This isn’t one of them. This is strictly business.
The Rock Island County rural fire service remains firm that this system is very dangerous, cannot be protected, and there is no benefit to justify the tremendous risk being placed on our small communities.
Signed,
Rock Island County Fire Service Professionals
