Recently, foreign media reported that safety monitors found that some lithium-ion battery modules overheated and exceeded the operating standard in the first phase of the energy storage system in Moslanting, California, causing the battery Water Spout fire extinguishing system to be triggered. At present, the project has been forced to suspend operation.
It is reported that the energy storage project is owned by Vistra Energy, a US retail and power generation company, and is currently the largest battery energy storage system in the world. The first phase, with a scale of 300MW Compact 1200 MWH, was officially put into operation on December 11, 2020. The second phase adds 100MW/400MWh battery energy storage system, namely 1600MWh.
Vistra Energy said that local firefighters handled the incident carefully in accordance with Energy's incident response plan and requirements, and that the situation had been brought under control and caused no harm to the community or personnel.
But some local media said that the incident was not only that the battery module became hot, but also that the battery rack was "charred" and the wires were "melted".
LG Energy Solution (LG Energy Solutions) is the battery supplier for the project, which provides 4500 TR1300 battery shelves and JH4 high-energy cells. Fluence is the system integrator and engineering contractor for the project.
LG energy storage battery is questioned
In fact, LG energy solutions in the field of energy storage problems, before a series of energy storage battery fires, recalls, LG energy storage batteries have been questioned.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a notice on LG energy solution RESU 10H lithium-ion battery energy storage products on Aug. 4, confirming that the battery may overheat or emit harmful smoke and may cause fire.
Due to the risk of battery fire, LG Energy Solutions will recall about 10000 sets of household energy storage battery products in the United States.
In April this year, foreign media reported that a fire broke out in the energy storage system in Hongcheng, Zhongqing South Road, South Korea, and the battery supplier was the LG energy solution.
In March, LG Energy Solutions said it would provide customers with free replacement services for some of its battery storage systems sold in Australia because of the risk of battery overheating.
Many ESS, equipped with LG lithium batteries produced between March 2017 and September 2018 may overheat and catch fire, according to a list on the Australian consumer regulator's product safety website.
As early as December 2020, LG Chemical (the parent company of LG Energy) announced a recall in the United States of some of its Resu 10H household energy storage system products because of the risk of heating and fire in the internal cells, involving about 1815 batteries. LG confirmed five fires in its energy storage system products in the United States, recalling a batch of batteries it produced in 2017-2018.
In addition, lithium batteries made by LG were installed in 17 of the 27 (ESS) fires that occurred in South Korea from August 2017 to October 2019. This means that since August 2017, there have been 22 fire accidents involving LG storage batteries.
In fact, this is not the first time LG Energy has encountered questions about the safety of battery products.
Due to the repeated spontaneous combustion accidents of Hyundai and General Electric vehicles, LG Energy has paid a huge recall cost, so the safety of power batteries has been questioned.
Of these, LG Energy bears 70% of Hyundai KONA's 1.4 trillion won (about 8 billion yuan) recall costs; GM, for its part, expects the Bolt EV recall to incur an additional expenditure of $1 billion and has made it clear that LG Energy will pay for it. The exact amount is not clear.
The exposure of battery safety problems and continuous negative news may also prompt LG Energy, which specializes in ternary technology, to open up new technology routes. It is understood that LG New Energy began to develop lithium iron phosphate battery technology at its Daejeon Laboratory in South Korea at the end of last year, and a pilot production line is expected to be completed in 2022.
Not only LG energy
On April 16 this year, an energy storage power station caught fire in Fengtai District, Beijing. In the course of treatment, the northern section of the power plant exploded without warning, resulting in the death of two firefighters, the injury of one firefighter and the disappearance of an employee at the power station.
The official media pointed out that the scene of the fire was the energy storage power station of Beijing Guoxuan Fuwei Optical Storage and charging Technology Co., Ltd. Before the incident, the power station was under construction and commissioning.
It is understood that Guoxuan Hi-Tech indirectly owns 55% of Beijing Guoxuan Fuwei Optical Storage and charging Technology Co., Ltd through Hefei Guoxuan.
In addition, the Victorian Big Battery battery energy storage system in 300MW/450MWh, Australia caught fire on July 30th. The accident facility is 13 tons of lithium battery, using Tesla Megapack energy storage system.
Summary
Compared with electric vehicles, there are relatively few fire incidents in battery energy storage systems around the world, but that does not mean that the industry and related companies do not have to take action.
In the domestic market, the energy storage industry has ushered in two rounds of policy changes.
On June 22, the National Energy Administration organized and drafted the New Energy Storage Project Management Standard (interim) (draft for soliciting opinions), which pointed out that before the key breakthrough in battery consistency management technology, the power battery performance monitoring and evaluation system was improved, in principle, no new large-scale power battery energy storage project can be built. The power battery energy storage projects that have been completed and put into operation should regularly evaluate the battery performance, strengthen monitoring and supervision.
This is undoubtedly a cold water for the development of energy storage in the echelon utilization of large power batteries.
On July 23, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration formally issued the guidance on accelerating the Development of New Energy Storage, which put forward such issues as defining the dominant position of the new energy storage independent market and improving the new energy storage price mechanism. it means that the energy storage market is about to usher in a new round of development.
According to statistics, by the end of 2020, the cumulative installed scale of electrochemical energy storage in China has reached 3.3 GW, and the compound growth rate is expected to exceed 56% in the next five years, and the energy storage industry will usher in the greatest development opportunity.
Based on this, at present, not only battery companies are scrambling to layout the energy storage market, but also lithium materials enterprises, photovoltaic enterprises, power survey and design and EPC enterprises have participated in all aspects of energy storage, and the energy storage market is ushering in the situation of letting a hundred flowers blossom.
For this reason, all enterprises must work together through practice and technological innovation to reduce or even avoid the inherent risks of battery energy storage systems. Under such a positive cycle, the energy storage industry can develop more vigorously and for a long time.
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