Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t observa; Given the rate just a handful of present day grid scale batteries seem to suffer meltdowns or spontaneously explode, imagine the fun we’ll all have in the future, when grid scale battery storage is scaled up.
The world’s largest lithium ion battery is down, again
The Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility Phase II set off fire alarms that activated a fault water suppression system, which – again – set off a cascading set of events that resulted in roughly ten battery packs melting down.
FEBRUARY 16, 2022 JOHN FITZGERALD WEAVER
Sunday night, February 13th, the Vistra Energy Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility Phase II set off fire alarms just after 8 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Upon arrival, the local fire department found roughly ten battery racks that were completely melted. The fire department representatives said that the fire was extinguished.
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Vistra has suggested that the event might be a similar event to the September incident that took down Phase I of the facility. According to a statement from Vistra, that incident involved a cascading series of events which may have started with the failure of a ball bearing in a fan.
The suspected bearing failure is presumed to have set off the very early smoke detection apparatus (VESDA), which in turn armed the heat suppression system. Vistra stated that due to ‘failures of a small number of couplings on flexible hoses and pipes’, water sprayed directly onto additional battery racks, causing short circuiting and arcing, which damaged the batteries and made more smoke. The additional smoke set off more alarms and caused even more water to spray from the failed couplings.
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Read more: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/02/16/the-worlds-largest-lithium-ion-battery-is-down-again/
At least the fire suppression system seemed to work this time, unlike the big Geelong fire last year, though spraying water on high amperage live battery terminals suggests the suppression system needs a little work.
Halon or CO2 might be better choices, at least they don’t conduct electricity. But Lithium is awfully reactive, so gas suppression systems might not have the right chemistry for dousing a fire involving Lithium compounds.
In any case I don’t like gas fire suppression systems. I’ve experienced the terror of being accidentally locked inside a server room with a Halon fire suppression system, and no way to open the door until someone noticed my predicament, so its fair to say I’m a little prejudiced against fire suppression systems which kill people. There was a solitary dusty respirator hanging inside an emergency box with a broken latch. My guess is the respirator wouldn’t have done much for me in an emergency.
With California and Britain committing to grid scale battery storage in a big way, and other nations at least toying with the idea, I suspect coming years will provide plenty more opportunities for me to write about newsworthy battery events.
Update (EW): A few people have suggested Halon wouldn’t do much, because batteries have their own oxidiser. Halon does not deny oxygen to fires, it changes the chemistry of the fire. Having said that, there is still a good chance it would be completely useless.
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How does Halon work?
Contrary to popular belief, Halon does not remove oxygen from the air, but rather reacts with all elements of a fire. When Halon is discharged, it breaks the chemical chain reaction. This accounts for most of its fire fighting properties. The other properties come from the cooling effect of the expanding gas. Because of this, Halon can be safely used in an occupied space.…
Read more: https://www.agas.com/us/resources/faqs-fire-protection/
Ah, if only there was some way of producing electricity such that there was no need for dangerous and expensive electricity storeage. The electricity would be produced 24/7 steadily and reliably, and could even be ramped up some if need be. Hey, one can dream can’t one.
A bunker buster in every garage
NB: Locational analysis for large scale grid battery storage should ALWAYS consider the blast radius.
On another scale, the side of your house or garage should also be taken into account.
Yes you don’t want to use Halon or CO2, as a LI battery in termal runaway is self sustaining without oxygen. It needs mostly to be cooled.
It needs mostly to be contained. I know of no Li battery fire that was ‘put out’.
It could be getting a whole lot hotter for the lithium battery fans if one of them started this fire-
Cargo Ship With Thousands Of VWs, Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis And Bentleys Is Burning In The Atlantic | Carscoops
No doubt the global car shippers and their insurers will be most interested in getting to the bottom of it all so stay tuned folks.
PS: According to this shipping blogger(watch video) the car carriers facing a car fire in open decks running the length of the ship have curtains that can surround a burning car so onboard CO2 can smother the fire-
FELICITY ACE – Vehicle carrier on fire in AtlanticSimplifying IMDG Code (shashikallada.com)
Not effective with an EV lithium battery fire although all crew are trained in such fire fighting. Their abandonment of the ship means they likely concurred with his analysis that the fire will inevitably progress the length of the ship due to the very nature of car carriers. He also discusses likely fire suppression/salvage actions that will ensue.
Funny. We got a gearhead/fireman who has been tracking and posting about EV fires in the PA/OH/WV/MD region and he had DeptTrans and FBI pound on his door and threaten him. Being a redneck and a Marine he has not. HooAhh!!!
I’ve read about these fires, but no mention of a Class D fire extinguisher used in extinguishing these fires. What I do read is to allow it to burn itself out and to contain the fire to reduce spread.
Class D fires involve combustible metals, such as magnesium, titanium, and sodium. Extinguishers with a D rating are designed to extinguish fires involving combustible metals.
Note: Common extinguishing agents may react with a combustible metal fire causing the severity of the fire to increase. The most common method for extinguishing a combustible metal fire is to cover the burning material with a dry powder, such as sand, which will not react with the material. If you store or use combustible metals, contact the Fire Prevention Services office for a consultation regarding the proper type and amount of extinguishing agent you should have available.
Sadly lithium ion batteries do not contain combustible metals. It is not lithium that burns.
The respirator would have done you no good, since whatever the effect on the fire chemistry, Halon would have taken the oxygen away from you. From an incident similar to yours, from experience I can tell you that AFFF foam suppressant is really bad, too.
Best bet, from my likely largely obsolete technical perspective, for combined chemical and metal fires in lithium batteries is dry chemical (even sand would work), but every solution for emergency is always a tradeoff, and always requires hazmet handling in ready storage and after application. Water-based suppression chemicals aren’t necessarily the worst in a fire.
And one of the most abundant breakdown chemicals in applied fire suppression is CO2. As with forest and brush fires (and as with real carbon costs of Solar PV and wind turbine generation), an honest accounting of the industry will show there are few benefits.
And The Grid Is Not For Storage, no matter what a crooked battery salesman says.
What would be your chances for survival if you were locked in a room with a fire without a suppression system? The unabated fire uses up the oxygen, produces CO and CO2, and byproducts of the decomposition of of various plastics.
Nom the fire does not use up oxygen. The batteries contain their own oxidants
Not sure I understand your point Clyde. Fire suppresson systems reduce the effects of a fire, once it has already begun. They don’t clean up after themselves, and often (perhaps always) create additional hazards.
In neither case where I (can’t speak for Eric) personally was exposed to fire suppression chemicals or systems, was there an actual fire. Both were system malfunctions in well maintained equipment, and quite dangerous in themselves.
Had I been locked in or been unable to move in either incident, I might easily have died from the chemical exposure. One was a situation I asume similar to Eric’s, in that poor system design prevented occupants from leaving once the suppression system was deployed.
In my other experience, it was fueled military munitions that were stored and maintained in that facility. In spite of there being no fire, most of those assets were still ruined by the malfunctionig fire suppression systems.
It was obviously better for either circumstance that a potential fire be stopped or reduced. But it is like any other engineering or technical compromise between risk and expense. Protection of individuals working in those places often comes in far behind protection of the larger facility and the public. .
Lithium batteries do not contain lithium metal
Metalic salts are still “metal” but may not be flammable.
Lithium polymer and lithium iron batteries are encased in aluminum and contain other flammable metals. and materials, including a few that can act as oxidizers when exposed to heat.
When set off the combined metal and chemical have to be treated as metal fires. Water based chemical treatments don’t work very well, and spread more hazardous materiial easily.
Lithium batteries, by nature of their design, can ignite those other chemicals in the system, and can cause rapid discharge of pressure(like an explosion), potenitially spreading to other batteries and throughout the facility.
It is irresponsible to deploy any industrial system, that is prone to fire or other hazardous material accident, without adequate fire suppression and hazard mitigation.
Halon used to be the #1 fire fighting gas in computer installations because it didn’t damage the hardware … haven’t seen it used now for around 30 years.
It was a long time ago.
. . . in a galaxy far, far away.
I say they need to drop boron and sand from jet fighters just like Chernobyl.
And find some p*ssed off coal miners 🙂
Helicopters John.
It might also help if the ministers responsible also had to fly in those helicopters through the smoke.
Back in the 1970s, when Dodge vans were all the rage, I came up with a business plan for an aftermarket Halon fire-suppressant system for those vehicles. It would have sold itself. After all, Van Halon was already a very well-recognized name.
Seriously, I would have grave reservations about trying Halon on a lithium battery fire. A fluorinated molecule would likely make things much, much worse. Sulfur hexafluoride is an extremely stable molecule – so much so that it is injected into the human bloodstream as bubbles, for ultrasound contrast purposes. It is listed as a non-toxic, non-flammable chemical. But when it gets together with metallic lithium, watch out! It burns fantastically hot, so much so that it was used in combination with solid lithium fuel in the steam generator for the U.S. Mk-50 torpedo propulsion system.
All of the fluorinated hydrocarbons have the potential to act as super-oxidizers for lithium (and magnesium) metal fires.
That’s what worries me. The organic electrolyte is a significant contributor to the fire though, so its possible chlorinating the electrolyte might significantly retard the fire. Having said that Lithium batteries are complicated enough so I think someone would have to perform tests to figure out the best course.
Meanwhile, in New South Wales, Australia a coal fired power station generating nameplate capacity of 3,000 MW will be shut down ten years ahead of schedule, the owners just announced. It generates 20 per cent of electricity for NSW.
And it will be replaced by a 700 MW battery pack.
The Minister who announced this is an accountant.
There’s a fire on a ship transporting cars – VWs Porsches etc – from Germany to USA. https://www.autoblog.com/2022/02/17/felicity-ace-cargo-ship-fire-porsche-volkswagen-cars/ “it couldn’t be put out using the equipment that the crew had access to on board”. A Lithium fire? If so, then I expect the information will be suppressed and no journalist will try to find out. I would be happy to be proved wrong!
Apologies to John Endicott February 17, 2022 10:18 am – I hadn’t seen that you had already covered it.
Incredible – I was also stuck in a computer room when some genius decided to test the brand new Halon gas system. The fire klaxon was so loud one instinctively inhales – halon.
No O2 – managed to get to the door which was not locked.
Assuming the system was properly sized for the protected space, you were in absolutely no danger. And you don’t normally do a full discharge test on any clean agent suppression system. The agent is far to expensive. Likely someone goofed, possibly pulling the manual release.
i think grid scale battery storage systems should be subjected to the same regulatory standards as nuclear power.
Like being inside some kind of containment system? Just let it melt down and then cover it with dirt?
Your local fire department has no ability to put out your electric car fire. They let it run its course. So, how much more are we adding to the price tag for a much more robust, higher-tech system that works partially at the grid scale?
Are we going to have to raise taxes so that all fire departments can start buying equipment to handle EV fires?
Like a big refrigerated container that could be dropped over the burning car using a ladder boom? And the tractor-trailer rig to transport it?
Instead of batteries that are VERY expensive, last at most 15 years, and may catch fire, it would be much better to have pumped hydro storage power plants, which last 100 years and NEVER catch fire.
He is an example of what is required in New England.
EXCERPT from:
RE FOLKS HOLD HIGH-LEVEL MEETINGS REGARDING WIND AND SOLAR BRINGING WORLD PEACE
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/re-folks-hold-high-level-meetings-regarding-wind-and-soal
PUMPED STORAGE HYDRO PLANTS, IF 100% WIND AND SOLAR
Hydro power plants, with large reservoirs, can deliver a steady power output on a year-round basis.
Typically, such reservoirs have at least one river, and a large surrounding watershed, to keep the water in the reservoir at desired levels.
Wind and solar systems can be used to power pumps, which would return water from below the power plant dam to the reservoir.
Such a plant is called a pumped-storage hydro plant.
Example of Pumped Storage Hydro Plant
A very large reservoir could be created, if the Connecticut River has a 150 ft high dam. Large areas of land would be flooded, whole towns with people would be displaced, which is OK, because we are trying to reduce CO2 emissions from evil fossil fuels to save the world from climate change.
If we assume the reservoir area would have 1,000 square miles, and the water level drops by only one foot, about 52,185 MWh of electricity would be sent to the grid. See table
New England total electricity loaded onto the grid is about 115 billion kWh/y, or 115 million MWh/y, or an average daily grid load of 0.315 million MWh, about 315068/52185 = 6 times greater than from one foot of water level drop. See Note
It would take about 10,799 MWh to return the water to the reservoir, for a net gain of 41,386 MWh per daily roundtrip
The electricity production would be about equal to the average daily grid load, if a 6-ft drop were allowed and the reservoir sides were vertical. See Note
Working Storage for All of New England, if 100% wind and solar
The total reservoir area would be about 10 million MWh/(41,386 MWh x 365) = 662 sq miles to provide 10 million MWh of working storage:
1) If all NE electricity were from wind and solar
2) If a 6 ft drop were allowed and the reservoir sides were vertical. See Note
3) To cover seasonal variations of wind and solar outputs
NOTE: If sloping sides, the reservoir surface area would become less, and the electricity produced per foot of drop would become less, i.e., at least 1,000 sq miles would be required.
https://cetulare.ucanr.edu/files/82040.pdf
http://convert-to.com/conversion/water-weight-volume/convert-us-gal-of-water-volume-to-pound-lb-of-water-weight.html
“. . . it would be much better to have pumped hydro storage power plants, which last 100 years and NEVER catch fire.”
Well, not exactly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayano-Shushenskaya_power_station_accident
Hydro plant fires are very rare compared got battery fires
Tasmania had a similar approach, large numbers of hydro dams.
Unfortunately a moderately prolonged drier than average season, combined with taking advantage of higher prices and more exporting of power than normal resulted in a lengthy use of diesel generators to keep the lights on.
Dang it there always seems to be flies in the ointment with these renewables…….
Tasmania is an island with a connection to the mainland, which likely is used counteract generation surpluses and deficits during a day.
I have written a separate article on the wind/solar/storage subject
PUMPED STORAGE HYDRO PLANTS IN NEW ENGLAND, IF 100% WIND AND SOLAR
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/pumped-storage-hydro-plants-in-new-england-if-100-wind-and-solar
Halon is safe. It’s the halon byproducts that are toxic.
“the suppression system needs a little work.”
You think?
may have started with the failure of a ball bearing in a fan.
failures of a small number of couplings on flexible hoses and pipes
Leave aside any issues with the batteries directly – that suggests the facility wasn’t exactly well built.
The fire burning on a car carrier in the Atlantic is being fueled by lithium ion batteries.
It could become the first EV Chernobyl.
As in the movie 2012, did someone say “engine start” while down in the cargo hold?
Yes lost the lot and no doubt importing overseas EVs just got a whole lot dearer-
EV batteries could complicate recovery of burning cargo ship with thousands of cars (msn.com)
Even if an ICE starts a fire they’re designed to deal with it but should an EV lithium battery catch fire the very nature of the open decks dooms the floating carpark. Why the crew abandoned ship when they recognized the inevitable. Has huge ramifications for the car carriers and their insurers.
Conventional water spray on a battery bank? Who came up with that genius idea. Offshore platforms used to have Halon banks, and then C02 – both of course having their own issues – especially C02 for personnel safety.
I wonder how HiFog would work on a battery fire? I guess it would eventually condense into water and cause the same issues.
Large banks of batteries are not a good place to be in a fire !