HB3809

HB3809 requires covered battery-storage leases to make the operator responsible for removing equipment, recycling or disposing of components, restoring land and providing financial backing for those obligations. It applies to agreements entered into on or after September 1, 2025; earlier agreements remain governed by the prior law. Final law.

Coverage is limited. The battery must be an electrochemical device with capacity of at least one megawatt-hour, connected at the transmission or distribution level, charging from the grid or a colocated generator and discharging later. The law addresses a landowner’s lease to an operator, not every household battery or owner-operated installation. The operator definition excludes an “electric utility” as defined in Utilities Code Section 31.002; that technical definition does not include every business that generates or sells power. Utility-owned supporting equipment is also excluded. Definitions and electric-utility definition.

Required cleanup terms: For facilities covered directly by new Chapter 303, leases must require safe removal of the operator-installed and operator-owned batteries, transformers, substations, overhead lines, and specified foundations and buried cables. Foundations and buried cables must be removed to at least three feet below ground, with resulting holes filled using the same or similar predominant soil. Components practicably capable of reuse or recycling must be collected for that purpose; other components must go to appropriately authorized disposal facilities, with hazardous and nonhazardous waste handled under their respective rules. Removal provisions.

Landowner requests matter. Removal of operator-built roads requires a request. Additional work—such as removing excavated rocks over 12 inches across, returning land to a tillable state and restoring the surface as nearly as reasonably possible—requires a request and must be reasonable. These requests are due within 180 days after the later of receipt of the specified certified-mail copy of a grid-operator notice of intent to permanently cease operations or receipt of the operator’s written decommissioning notice. That is a deadline for requesting the extra work, not a universal 180-day deadline to dismantle a facility.

Money behind the promise: The lease must require financial assurance, such as an investment-grade parent-company guaranty, letter of credit, bond or another form reasonably acceptable to the landowner. The statutory minimum uses estimated removal, recycling/disposal and restoration costs compared with salvage value, with an adjustment for value pledged to secure outstanding debt. An independent Texas-licensed professional engineer must determine the cost and salvage estimates. The operator pays for the estimates and assurance. Financial assurance.

The initial estimate must be delivered by the battery’s tenth operating anniversary, then updated at least every five years. Financial assurance must be delivered by the earlier of lease termination or the fifteenth operating anniversary. The “battery operation date” means first use for its intended purpose—not approval to participate in a wholesale market. Assurance must remain sufficient and cannot be canceled before cleanup is complete without replacement. It also remains in place on an ownership transfer until evidence of qualifying replacement assurance is delivered. The law does not require the full guarantee at the start of every lease.

Wind and solar projects use a related but different route. Chapter 303 generally applies to facilities not already subject to the wind or solar agreement laws in Chapters 301 and 302. But a wind or solar lease authorizing battery storage must include the new reuse/recycling/disposal obligations, and the assurance required under those chapters must be sufficient to secure them in the manner Section 303.0005 provides. Do not treat every colocated project as a standalone battery lease or replace its wind/solar rules wholesale. Applicability, wind law and solar law.

Attempts to waive Chapter 303 rights or exempt an operator from its duties are void. Someone harmed by a violation can seek an appropriate court order preventing further violations; other legal remedies remain available. This is not a state-funded cleanup guarantee. Remedies.