Moss Landing plant fire

[HarryN]

Even the professionals struggle with battery fires.

It is unclear if it is isolated to one of the smaller modules on site, or larger.

It is definitely an intense fire.

One of the largest Li battery storage sites around.

Smoke from fire at California lithium battery plant raises concerns about air quality

A fire at the world’s largest battery storage plant in Northern California is smoldering after sending plumes of toxic smoke into the atmosphere.

apnews.com

 

[FilterGuy]

This will create significant NIMBY pushback for future battery installations.

If I understand correctly, there are actually two different battery systems at Moss Landing. One by Tesla and one by another company. I wonder which it is.

I also wonder what chemistry the batteries that are burning is. My first guess would be NMC. I would think they could control the fire better if is LiFePO4. Unfortunately, most of the world will not understand the difference so this fire will create pushback on new installs of any type of battery.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Already a couple threads on it. It is not the Tesla battery system. It is the one with LG batteries in it.

 

[perryfranz]

This will create significant NIMBY pushback for future battery installations.

Many companies are limiting themself the installation possibilities, for example the newest Huawei Luna2000 S1 Huawei itself discourages to mount the battery inside, even in garages (as in pic) etc...



And there is a specific part for fire/flood and fire department in the manual


They are taking the safety part with seriousness. If you want to read the manual you can find it here in ENG.


Also Italian fire department regulations are limiting us (I work for a company that installs PV systems, heatpumps and other systems for renewable energy in Italy) a lot on the commercial and residencial installation; but I find all those limitation correct because fire responders do not have to wonder how to operate case by case loosing precious time; they need standard installation guide and common safety switch with easy access to make the site safe before operate. Even discourage installing batteries were is dangerous (I will specify later).
I can upload some documentation if you'd like to read it, but the papers are in Italian...

In some factories were they use flammable or combustible material in large quantities we need to use solar panel with the certification as A1 class material (classification reported on UNI 9177) were A1 means "no contribution to fire, non-combustible, no flash-over" (or make fireproof the PV field).
Only Sharp has passed this classification with the NU-JC series and in those cases batteries are not allow if not permitted after a after a visit and report by the fire dept (but 99% cases they does not give permit).

 

[FilterGuy]

Already a couple threads on it. It is not the Tesla battery system. It is the one with LG batteries in it.

Interesting. LG had a line of NMC batteries that got recalled due to fire danger.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Let's just say I'm not a fan of LG cells!

 

[FilterGuy]

Let's just say I'm not a fan of LG cells!

I believe LG has released a line of LiFePO4 batteries.

I suspect all the major players are moving away from NMC for everything except automotive where energy density is so important. Even then, the car companies are using LiFePO4 on lower-range vehicles.

For Utility-scale batteries like they are doing at Moss Landing, it seems to me that there is no real benefit to using NMC, but there are a lot of downsides.

The Moss landing installations are an interesting case study. If you look at the pictures of the fires, you can see big smokestacks. Those are from a decommissioned power plant. The infrastructure for power distribution was already in place for the power plant so that makes it a great site for a utility-sized battery bank. Unfortunately, it is right on the banks of the Elkhorn Slew which is a marine estuary. Hopefully, they are containing the run-off from the firefighting and not letting it get into the Slew.

 

[hwy17]

This will create significant NIMBY pushback for future battery installations.

I'll oppose its replacement. Bring back the gas peaker.

 

[FilterGuy]

I'll oppose its replacement. Bring back the gas peaker.

Oh man.... don't get me started on how California has SOOOO mismanaged the power infrastructure. All of the regulations and controls, have effectively shut down some peaker plants and prevented the construction of other peaker plants. The result is the rolling blackouts that we get in the summer.

These utility-scale battery systems are in response to the shortage of conventional peaker power. The technology for Battery solutions may someday be up to the task of replacing Gas-fired peaker plants.... but it is not there yet. Meanwhile, Californians are living with 3rd world power reliability.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

This will create significant NIMBY pushback for future battery installations.

to be honest, it was an uncomfortable moment when my wife asked "if those batteries in that room burn, nobody can extinguish them and firefighters just watch until the house has burnt down?" -- even though the house has all masonry walls without wood framing, I could not deny that this scenario is possible.

It's already established that the EV has to park 100' away from the main residence.

And then there's the issue with toxic fumes. As I posted in my yesterday's thread, I could smell faint electric fire fumes from 30 miles away!
In another thread people worried about pollution of the agricultural land around that battery plant.
I received an email from my kid's principal that children are now (10:15am) allowed outside again.

Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires - Scientific Reports

Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements of heat release and fluoride gas...

www.nature.com

 

[FilterGuy]

to be honest, it was an uncomfortable moment when my wife asked "if those batteries in that room burn, nobody can extinguish them and firefighters just watch until the house has burnt down?" -- even though the house has all masonry walls without wood framing, I could not deny that this scenario is possible.

It's already established that the EV has to park 100' away from the main residence.

And then there's the issue with toxic fumes. As I posted in my yesterday's thread, I could smell faint electric fire fumes from 30 miles away!
In another thread people worried about pollution of the agricultural land around that battery plant.
I received an email from my kid's principal that children are now (10:15am) allowed outside again.

Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires - Scientific Reports

Lithium-ion battery fires generate intense heat and considerable amounts of gas and smoke. Although the emission of toxic gases can be a larger threat than the heat, the knowledge of such emissions is limited. This paper presents quantitative measurements of heat release and fluoride gas...

www.nature.com

You won't hear me say LiFePO4 is perfectly safe, but it is far safer than NMC. Unfortunately, NMC and LiFePO4 are both lumped under the 'Lithium' heading so safety regulations that are appropriate for one are applied to both.

A perfect example is battery spacing. There are rules put in place for the spacing of lithium batteries that try to ensure that if one spontaneously combusts it does not propagate to the other. That is probably appropriate for NMC but it is impossible to get a LiFePO4 to spontaneously combust.

Sadly, events like the fire at Moss Landing are going to heighten the fear of 'lithium batteries' and that is going to make it harder to get regulators to agree to separate the rules for NMC from the rules for LiFePO4.

 

[Brucey]

This will create significant NIMBY pushback for future battery installations.

If I understand correctly, there are actually two different battery systems at Moss Landing. One by Tesla and one by another company. I wonder which it is.

I also wonder what chemistry the batteries that are burning is. My first guess would be NMC. I would think they could control the fire better if is LiFePO4. Unfortunately, most of the world will not understand the difference so this fire will create pushback on new installs of any type of battery.

Apparently this was phase 1, a 300 MWh capacity config all in one building (two stories of batteries). A Fluence/LG design.

Crazy design compared to tesla megapacks where a single container can burn outdoors without destroying entire battery array due to spread.

 

[DPC]

Well this is a plant some distance away thats makes some very noisy chemicals.
This is an old photo for security reasons....
But its still there and has been for 100 years.

They can make their products without massive fires and mayhem
And remember its a product thats is supposed to violently release energy,
I think its simply a matter of proper design to make a battery storage plant thats equally safe and secure

 

[Rednecktek]

More info on Techspot available.

So much for battery prices dropping.

 

[Brucey]

Not sure there's any other batteries like this all housed in one giant turbine room so once one module goes up it's lights out and massive fire for days...

https://insideevs.com/news/489894/vistra-moss-landing-energy-storage-world-largest/

"Housed inside the power plant's completely refurbished former turbine building and spanning the length of nearly three football fields, Phase I of the battery system can power approximately 225,000 homes during peak electricity pricing periods. The system is made up of more than 4,500 stacked battery racks or cabinets, each containing 22 individual battery modules, which capture excess electricity from the grid, largely during high solar-output hours, and can release the power when energy demand is at its highest and solar electricity is declining, usually early morning and late afternoon."

 

[steamerone]

I thought the Tesla battery containers were already placed a bit too close together, but this is just absurd—two stories high?

It feels less like a question of if a disaster will happen and more like when it inevitably will.

 

[HarryN]

I thought the Tesla battery containers were already placed a bit too close together, but this is just absurd—two stories high?

It feels less like a question of if a disaster will happen and more like when it inevitably will.

Yes, and the last time I checked, the wind was blowing in from the ocean - over the local community, farm land, and toward me. Probably far enough away to not be a problem by the time it gets here, but definitely will affect a lot of others.

 

[Brucey]

I thought the Tesla battery containers were already placed a bit too close together, but this is just absurd—two stories high?

It feels less like a question of if a disaster will happen and more like when it inevitably will.

Interesting stuff done in a study on ESS failure simulation in a 20 foot container, they ran three tests. First one they just let it burn. Second test they used clean agent. Third test they used water. Lot of info on what types of gases were produced. We worry a lot about possible hydrogen explosion but looks like the carbon monoxide will probably get you well before that happens.

None of the designs passed ul9540a requirements.

https://fsri.org/sites/default/files/2021-07/UL9540AInstallationDemo_Report_Final_4-12-21.pdf

Now this is in 2021, and phase 1 of moss landing was done in 2020. But I can't imagine how a tr1300 rack could contain a runaway failure when you have a double stack above and directly adjacent units on either side.

 

[BarracudaBob]

I knew it was only time when this fricken anti Li fire fighter got involved!

 

[wpns]

can release the power when energy demand is at its highest

And sometimes release the power when you don't want it to.

 

[joeshmoe]

I knew it was only time when this fricken anti Li fire fighter got involved!

I was gonna post this. I've watched a few of his vids. Doesn't really seem to care about the different chemistries nor differentiates between them for his viewers. It's all "just lithium". And don't bother reading the comments. You'll get a head ache.

 

[Rednecktek]

I was gonna post this. I've watched a few of his vids. Doesn't really seem to care about the different chemistries nor differentiates between them for his viewers. It's all "just lithium". And don't bother reading the comments. You'll get a head ache.

Well... plastic bags, jet fuel, and propane and cell phone cases are all petrolium products, so they're all going to explode any second now, right?

 

[crossy]

Has the fire been extinguished (or burned itself out) yet??

 

[joeshmoe]

Has the fire been extinguished (or burned itself out) yet??

Seems to be just smoldering now. Evac orders have been lifted and the hwy has reopened.

 

[PVGeezer]

They're not trying to put it out, just keep it contained. So it's likely to be awhile yet.