The research shows that the fire safety standards of battery energy storage systems need to be further improved
Angus Moodie, engineering manager at consulting firm Enertis Applus+, said fire safety should always be the primary concern of the battery storage industry, and effective measures need to be taken to ensure that this goal is achieved.
Although the incidence of battery energy storage system fire incidents is relatively low, any failure of this emerging energy storage technology is likely to trigger widespread public concern and close attention from government departments. Because once a failure occurs, it may not only pollute the environment, but also have a lasting negative impact on surrounding residents, emergency personnel and the local ecology.
Although the number of failure events is declining (as shown in Figure 1), each event provides an opportunity to investigate battery energy storage system failures in depth, and provides the battery energy storage industry and government departments with more valuable knowledge about how to improve system safety.
However, relying solely on lessons learned after an accident is a lagging approach, and safety standards often lag behind the rapid deployment of battery storage systems. While safety standards and regulations should provide benchmarks for the design, construction, operation and dismantling of battery storage systems, efforts should not stop there.
Taking into account all relevant variables, implementing a comprehensive risk management hierarchy is an indispensable best practice for ensuring the safety of battery storage systems. Taking the battery storage system fire incident in Moss Landing, California, in January this year as an example, this can be more clearly understood through the analysis of this incident and the comparison of current standards and methods.
The elimination strategy aims to completely eliminate potential fire hazards from the design and operation of battery storage systems. Battery storage system developers and owners should ask themselves a key question: Do they have to introduce storage technologies that pose a fire hazard?
In some cases, the safe operation of battery storage systems depends on the characteristics of lithium-ion battery systems, but this choice must be recognized as a fire risk. If other energy storage technologies are chosen, the following measures need to be adjusted according to the chosen technology, and may even avoid or significantly reduce the risk of fire.
