Smoke rises throughout a hearth at Vistra Power’s Moss Touchdown battery storage facility in California on 17 January
Bloomberg / Getty Photos
A hearth on the world’s largest battery storage plant in California destroyed 300 megawatts of vitality storage, compelled 1200 space residents to evacuate and launched smoke plumes that would pose a well being risk to people and wildlife. The incident knocked out 2 per cent of California’s vitality storage capability, which the state depends on as a part of its transition to make use of extra renewable energy and fewer fossil fuels.
The fireplace began the afternoon of 16 January, burning by means of a concrete constructing filled with lithium batteries on the Moss Touchdown Power Storage Facility in Monterey county, California. Different buildings on the positioning, together with extra battery storage amenities and a pure gasoline plant, weren’t affected. By the morning of 17 January, native officers reported minimal flames and smoke.
“That is actually much more than a hearth, it’s a wake-up name for this business,” mentioned Glenn Church, a member of Monterey county’s board of supervisors, throughout a press convention. “If we’re going to be shifting ahead with sustainable vitality, we want a secure battery system in place.” After the press convention on the morning of 17 January, the blaze flared up again that afternoon, resulting in an extension of the evacuation order.
As a result of lithium fires burn at excessive temperatures and emit poisonous substances similar to hydrogen fluoride, firefighters let this kind of blaze burn itself out somewhat than partaking with it instantly. There have been no reviews of accidents related to the hearth, and air monitor programs didn’t detect any indicators of hydrogen fluoride. However the smoke plumes from the hearth are prone to have contained heavy metals and PFAS, higher often called eternally chemical substances, says Dustin Mulvaney at San Jose State College in California.
Native officers are currently advising residents of Monterey county to remain indoors and preserve their doorways and home windows closed. Inhaled heavy metals and PFAS may pose a well being danger to space residents and farm employees. These substances may additionally affect wildlife similar to the ocean otters that reside within the wetlands of the close by Elkhorn Slough salt marsh, says Mulvaney.
The destroyed constructing was considered one of two Moss Touchdown battery amenities owned by the Texas-based firm Vistra Power. Its amenities beforehand skilled much less severe incidents that concerned overheating batteries and malfunctions within the fireplace suppression system. However the facility that went up in flames this week has a water-based suppression system and it’s unclear why it failed, mentioned Vistra Power officers through the press convention. They’re nonetheless investigating the basis reason for the hearth.
Regardless of this incident, utility-scale battery programs for electrical energy grids have skilled a 97 per cent drop in failures worldwide – which are sometimes fire-related – between 2018 and 2023, in response to a report by the Electrical Energy Analysis Institute, a non-profit organisation based mostly in Washington DC.
“This large lower has been noticed despite the truth that deployments of utility-scale storage proceed to extend at excessive charges,” says Maria Chavez on the Union of Involved Scientists. “Battery storage programs are designed with a number of ranges of security options that goal to forestall and mitigate points like fireplace danger – sadly, accidents just like the one at Moss Touchdown facility can nonetheless happen.”
California can also be higher ready than most US states to reply to such incidents: it has a state legislation requiring native governments to develop emergency response plans with battery builders, says Mulvaney. He described the necessity to study from occasions like this in designing future battery storage programs.
However the lack of most or all the 300-megawatt facility at Moss Touchdown will put a severe dent in Vistra Power’s general 750-megawatt on-site vitality storage capability, and California’s complete 13,300-megawatt energy storage capacity.
Moss Touchdown has been serving the state’s electrical energy grid by storing renewable vitality and decreasing dependence on fossil fuels similar to pure gasoline vegetation, says Mulvaney. Reconstruction and constructing again battery capability may take a number of years – an enormous ask, contemplating California is already dealing with the necessity for intensive rebuilding elsewhere because of the Los Angeles wildfires.
“We will’t have battery fires like this,” says Mulvaney. “We will’t lose 300 megawatts of batteries in a single day like this.”
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