The reignition is one more reminder of how troublesome fires in lithium-ion batteries will be to cope with. They burn hotter than different fires—and even when it seems as if the hazard has handed, they’ll reignite.
As these batteries turn into extra prevalent, first responders are studying a complete new playbook for what to do after they catch hearth, as a brand new story from our newest print journal factors out. Let’s discuss what makes battery fires a brand new problem, and what it means for the gadgets, automobiles, and grid storage services that depend on them.
“Fires in batteries are fairly nasty,” says Nadim Maluf, CEO and cofounder of Qnovo, an organization that develops battery administration programs and analytics.
Whereas first responders may be capable to shortly douse a fireplace in a gas-powered automobile with a hose, preventing an EV hearth can require rather more water. Usually, it’s higher to only let battery fires burn out on their very own, as Maya Kapoor outlines in her story for MIT Know-how Assessment. And as one professional identified in that story, till a battery is dismantled and recycled, “it’s all the time going to be a hazard.”
One very clear instance of that’s final week’s reignition at Moss Touchdown, the world’s largest battery storage challenge. In mid-January, a battery hearth destroyed a big a part of a 300-megawatt grid storage array.
The positioning has been quiet for weeks, however residents within the space obtained an alert final Tuesday night time urging them to remain indoors and shut home windows. Vistra, the proprietor of Moss Touchdown Energy Plant, didn’t reply to written questions for this story however stated in a public assertion that flames had been noticed on the facility on Tuesday and the fireplace had burned itself out by Wednesday morning.
Even after a battery burns, among the cells can nonetheless maintain cost, Maluf says, and in a big storage set up on the grid, there generally is a complete lot of saved vitality that may spark new blazes or pose a hazard to cleanup crews lengthy after the preliminary hearth.
Vistra is at the moment within the technique of de-linking batteries at Moss Touchdown, in accordance with a web site the corporate set as much as share details about the fireplace and aftermath. The method includes unhooking {the electrical} connections between batteries, which reduces the danger of future issues. De-linking work started on February 22 and will take a few weeks to finish.
