Fire in the world’s largest battery facility is a clean energy shock

A fire broke out at the world’s largest battery storage plant in California destroyed 300 MW energy storage, the residents of 1200 area were forced to vacate and the smoke was covered that could pose a threat to the health of humans and wildlife Is. This phenomenon destroys 2 percent of California’s energy storage capacity, on which the state depends as part of its transition to use more renewable energy and low fossil fuels.

The fire began on the afternoon of 16 January, a fire in a concrete building filled with lithium battery at Moss Landing Energe Storage facility in Montere County, California. Other buildings at the site, including more battery storage facilities and a natural gas plant, were not affected. By the morning of 17 January, local authorities reported minimum flames and smoke.

“This is actually more than the fire, it’s a warning to this industry,” said Glen ChurchMembers of the Board of Supervisors of Montere County during a press conference. “If we want to move forward with durable energy, we need a safe battery system.” Fire caught after press conference on the morning of 17 January Furked again that afternoonWhich expanded the withdrawal order.

Because lithium fire burns at high temperatures and emit toxic substances such as hydrogen fluoride, firefighters allow them to burn themselves instead of dealing directly with this type of fire. There is no report of an injury related to fire, and the air monitor system has not detected any indication of hydrogen fluoride. But the smoke of the fire is likely to include heavy metals and PFAS, which is always known as chemicals. Dustin mulveni At San Jose State University in California.

Local officer Currently advising Residents of Montere County have been asked to stay indoors and keep their doors and windows closed. Heavy metals going inside with breath and can pose health risk for residents and agricultural workers of PFAS region. Mulvenni says that these substances can also affect wildlife such as sea udilavas who live in the humid land of the nearby Elkorn Slow salt marsh.

The destroyed building was one of the two moss landing battery facilities owned by Texas -based company Vistra Energy. Its facilities had earlier less serious events including the batteries being overheated and the fire mitigation system malfunction. But this week the facility in which the fire broke out has a water-based suppression system and it is not clear why it failed, officials of Vistara Energy said during the press conference. They are still investigating the root cause of the fire.

Despite this phenomenon, between 2018 and 2023, the utility -scal battery system for the power grid has seen a 97 percent decline in the worldwide failures – which are often related to fire. Report By a non-profit organization at Washington DC, by the Electric Power Research Institute.

“This huge shortage has been observed despite the fact that the deployment of storage on utility-fame is increasing at high rates,” says Maria Chavez In the union of concerned scientists. “Battery storage systems are designed with safety features of several levels that are aimed at preventing and reducing issues such as fire risk – unfortunately, accidents such as moss landing facilities can still occur.”

Mulvenni says California is better prepared than most American states to react to such incidents: it has a state law that requires local governments to develop an emergency response plan with battery developers. He explained the need to learn from such events in designing future batteries storage systems.

But the loss of most of the 300-Magawat facility in Moss Landing or all will have a serious impact on the total 750-Magawat on-site energy storage capacity of Vistra Energy and a total of 13,300-Magawatt of California. Energy storage capacity,

Mulvenni says that Moss landing is serving the state’s power grid by storing renewable energy and reducing dependence on natural gas plants such as fossil fuels. It may take several years to reconstruct and reconstruct the battery capacity – a big question, given that California is already facing the need for widespread reconstruction elsewhere due to the wildfire of Los Angeles.

Says Mulvenni, “We cannot set the battery on fire like this.” “We cannot lose 300 MW batteries overnight.”