Fire code submittals for battery storage sites

What the fire code official reviews

On a battery storage site, the fire code official, often the county fire marshal, reviews how fire apparatus reach the site and where firefighting water comes from. That review sits between your interconnection agreement and notice to proceed. If the EPC designs only inside the fence, nobody owns it.

Who does what

• We design the apparatus access, the water supply and the civil work outside the fence, and assemble the submittal.
• Your EPC designs the fenced area and its NFPA 855 design.
• We do not do the NFPA 855 design. Our seal covers only what we designed.

When to start

As soon as the site is under control, ideally with a site assessment. The water answer can be a hydrant, a tap or a tank, and a tank changes the budget. We flag that owner cost as early as the agencies will commit to it.

What we do

1. Identify the fire code official and the fire code that jurisdiction adopted.
2. Find the water supply. Where a water system reaches the site, we check what it can deliver and design the tap. Where no fire flow supply exists, we run an NFPA 1142 water supply calculation.
3. Design the apparatus access from the public road to the fence.
4. Collect your EPC's NFPA 855 design and assemble it with our sheets and calculations.
5. Submit and answer the fire code official's comments.

What you get

• The fire code submittal, assembled with your EPC's NFPA 855 design.
• Sealed access and water supply design for the work we designed.
• The water supply calculation or fire flow check behind it.
• Written responses to review.

What affects time and cost

• The water answer. A hydrant, a tap or a tank. Water supply construction is quoted separately once the requirement is known.
• Your EPC's documents. Our production time starts when we receive the fenced design and the NFPA 855 documents.
• The fire code official. Review time is theirs. We commit our production times; agency review times are not ours to promise.

The fire code submittal is part of one battery storage scope with one fee, alongside access, drainage, the plat and stormwater documentation.