HADLEY — A new Planning Board hearing on a standalone battery energy storage system for a site on Breckenridge Road will begin next month, 18 months after a Hampshire Superior Court lawsuit was triggered when planners turned down the necessary permits for the project.

The Planning Board on June 16 agreed to schedule a hearing for the project, which needs a solar energy special permit and a business use in aquifer special permit, for July 21 at 6:45 p.m.

Tom Corbett, a representative for Zero-Point Development of Worcester, told planners that an application will be filed and that he is awaiting an abutter’s list for the gravel pit on Breckenridge, located a short distance from Zatyrka Park.

The battery project would have an estimated storage capacity of 5-megawatt AC, with eight battery containers and associated components.

The company, as ZP Battery Devco, LLC, on Jan. 31, 2025 filed a lawsuit in Hampshire Superior Court against the Planning Board contending its decision 24 days earlier, in a 4-0 vote, was legally untenable and “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious.”

While the lawsuit remains active, on June 10 both the plaintiffs and defandsnt filed a joint motion to continue the pretrial conference to Aug. 20. The pretrial conference had been set scheduled for June 18.

In the motion, “the parties state that they are continuing attempts to resolve this matter in a manner that, if successful, would not require the intervention of the court. and which may result in dismissal of the case.”

Corbett said Berkshire Design Group will be handling some of the work and making any modifications needed.

Zero-Point originally filed plans in December 2023, but the hearing was repeatedly delayed until the town got a bylaw in place allowing stand-alone energy storage systems, which had previously been prohibited.