ESS Fires Abroad Continue... "Battery Explosions More Destructive"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] As the fire at the SK C&C Pangyo data center, which triggered the ‘Kakao outage’ incident, is presumed to have started from a lithium-ion battery for UPS, attention is being drawn to the fact that fires in energy storage systems (ESS) using lithium-ion batteries are also occurring overseas.

According to Bloomberg News and others on the 20th (local time), a fire broke out on September 20 at a battery storage facility at a California substation operated by the US power company PG&E. PG&E explained that the fire started from one Tesla-produced ESS ‘Megapack’. Although the fire was extinguished without casualties, nearby highways were closed and evacuation orders were issued to residents in the surrounding area.

Tesla Megapack was also the cause of a fire in Australia last year. In July of last year, a fire broke out during a Megapack battery test, and a 13-ton lithium battery was engulfed in flames, taking four days to extinguish. This has led to evaluations that as ESS has become more widespread, battery fires have become more common and destructive compared to before.

Anjani Trivedi, a Bloomberg columnist, warned about the dangers of lithium immediately after the California fire in a column. He said, “We need to ask whether lithium-ion batteries should be used as ESS,” adding, “Although these batteries are generally used in consumer electronics or electric vehicles (EVs), the fact that there are no problems there does not mean it is appropriate to use them for large-scale storage systems.”

Besides Tesla, ESS fires have continued to occur overseas. In April 2019, a fire broke out at an ESS at a substation operated by APS in Arizona, USA. After investigating the fire, Arizona regulators stated, “Using lithium-ion batteries in such facilities poses unacceptable risks,” raising questions about the safety of lithium-ion batteries.

The American Public Power Association (APPA) recently explained the California fire and reported that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is actively addressing ESS safety issues in the US. Through the NEPA855 regulation, NFPA presents standards regarding the technology used in ESS, ESS installation scale and separation, and fire prevention.