We all heard about the Tesla Megabattery fire in Victoria last Friday, but you may not know it only started operating on Thursday night. Or that 30 fire trucks and 150 firefighters took 76 hours to get the blazing battery under control.
So it burned for three times longer than it operated.
When they burn, Tesla batteries produce smoke with aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, lead, selenium, manganese and chromium.
Luckily no one would put a large Tesla battery inside their home, eh?
…
Firefighters were essentially helpless to stop the 13 ton lithium battery from burning, but they did stop the rest of the battery plant catching fire.
“…we cannot put them out with water or anything else. The best way to deal with these things is to let them burn until they are burnt out. If we try and cool them down, it just prolongs the process. …this wind is helping us by keeping it burning fairly freely,” the CFA’s Assistant Chief Fire Officer Ian Beswicke said.
“But we could be here anywhere from 8 to 24 [or even 76] hours while we wait for it to burn down.”
They also measured air quality and issued warnings to residents to get themselves and their pets indoors, close windows, and turn off their heating and cooling so they didn’t breath in the toxic smoke. (That must have been a fun weekend in midwinter.)
No price is too high when you’re saving the planet.
Geelong’s Tesla Big Battery fire burns over weekend
Jessica Sier Journalist
Aug 1, 2021 – 5.16pm
A fire at French renewable energy giant Neoen’s Victorian Big Battery at Geelong continued to burn into Sunday, with fire crews awaiting experts from Tesla to assist in opening the Megapack battery that first caught ablaze.
The fire started at the partly federally funded 300-megawatt Tesla Megapack battery project at Moorabool on Friday morning. Fire crews quickly containing the blaze but were unable to extinguish it completely to determine what started it. A Country Fire Authority spokesperson said the fire had been contained to two battery packs, but sparks flared up every so often, re-igniting the blaze. Tesla did not respond to requests for comment.
The Tesla battery is expected to become the largest in the southern hemisphere, capable of discharging 450 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity, as part of a Victorian government push to transition to renewable energy.
Luckily no one was injured, but some nearby crops will be enriched in heavy metals.
Don’t put one of these near your home
The first sign of any operation was at 6:15pm the night before. Some part of the plant was operational for at least 16 hours.
…Source: NEMreview included in from this article: WattClarity
So really it burned for four times longer than it ran for.
The incident did not disrupt the grid, but if the battery plant was operating on a hot sunny day and it caught fire, Victoria might not be so lucky. If this had been a coal plant on fire, presumably someone would have already calculated the cadmium and lead effect and how many spotted-quoll-years were lost.
Bill S and David B, David Archibald. Rafe. Jim Simpson.
How safe are electric vehicles? Is there any restriction on them in underground car parks? Should there be?
In the UK they are allowed on the channel tunnel shuttle train which worries me a little. But are Ev’s any more dangerous than petrol or diesel vehicles?
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Someone has already Inquired how safe they would be on fairies or other car carrying vessels.
The new US battle ship took 4 days to put out.
Building from plastics REALLY not a safe idea.
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Yes, they tend to be very high profile but whether the fires are more frequent or longer lasting than on normal vehicles I do not know.
This tesla battery is not the norm of course as regards size, but it seems that once such batteries they start burning they are difficult to put out
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As can be seen concern is being expressed about Ev’s parking in underground car parks of high rise buildings
https://www.parking-net.com/parking-news/bolidt-kunststoftoepassing-b-v/stringent-fire-safety-regulations-electric-vehicles
At the least it is suggested charging should not be allowed. An intense extra hot fire in the confines of a car park where there might be vertical access to flats via ventilation shafts is worrying
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If the confined space in an underground car park is full of EVs as would happen when we have all been converted, how likely is it that a fire in one EV would spread to the rest?
If so, it would make the Towering Inferno look like small beer, and it would not be possible to use the water in the tanks on the roof to put it out, as was done in the film.
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“but it seems that once such batteries they start burning they are difficult to put out.”
More like impossible to put out.
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They have no practical means to “put out” these Lithium batteries, all they do is try to stop the fire/heat spreading to nearby batteries & structures. They just wait for them to finish reacting & hope for the best. They never stopped the radioactive fuel in the Chernobyl reactor, they just contained it. It’s also hard to extinguish coal seam fires from deep underground.
These BESS projects may need to:
1) increase the distance between groups of batteries;
2) water / fire suppression supplied onsite (why did fire brigade had to truck in enough water);
3) additional monitoring during connection & operation to identify abnormal operation earlier to avoid tipping point into thermal runaway;
4) put batteries in containers which can isolate fires or be automatically filled with a gas or liquid to suppress fires, maybe piping/sprinklers between the rows to be ready for emergencies;
5) change battery chemistry & design to increase safety.
Water doesn’t put out the lithium based fires, only used to stop heat/flames spreading.
10
You must be referring to transgender batteries?
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Jojo there are lots of green fairies. Do they carry batteries for torches to light their way out of darkness?
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Very good questions. Don’t expect any truthful answers though from officialdom who are experts at telling lies. As usual one has to do their own research. This is in the face of an increasing incidence of alarm by officialdom telling us to please don’t do your own research because you’ll get it wrong. The arrogance of them is amazing. Anyway, going past their monumental arrogance and BS, it doesn’t take much research to uncover the truth. Yes, EV are hazardous. See Electric cars are a hazard on motorways, Government admits
Oh wait a minute! The government admits it! What the heck?!
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The problem is going to be an accident in a tunnel or tesla failure in a undergound/under large building. The heat for the tesla battery internal discharge is so high it can melt steel structures causing tunnel collapse, building collapse, and so on, as well as igniting other vehicles in the tunnel/parkade.
The problem is in car accidents, the Tesla battery ignites because if the plates are damaged. When the plates are damaged the battery internally ‘shorts’ (circuit breaker cannot protect against an internal battery short) and all of the energy that is stored in very large battery releases as a super hot electrical arc in the battery. The complete discharge of all of the energy stored in that battery produces the super heat.
Spraying water on the burning shorting battery takes heat away from the fire to attempt to reduce the risk of the battery fire spreading and reduce the amount of toxic fumes. Spraying water on the battery does not stop the battery from internally discharging all of its stored energy.
Gasoline tanks can withstand car accidents and not lose integrity. A gasoline tank that is damaged will leak. But not necessary ignite. Gasoline/diesel fires can be stopped using chemical foams that stop oxygen for igniting the gasoline.
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Insurance stats will tell us longer term as the population increases and trends are substantiated rather than fiery anecdotes cherry picked.
Two characteristics stand out to me:
1. EVs can burst into flames while parked an inactive. I don’t believe while the batteries are constructed the way they are that this will go away. Small % but could be disastrous in the wrong car park/tunnel
2. Once burning (for whatever reason) the strategy is containment rather the being extinguished. This is not a good feature in terms of collateral damage and will get priced in by insurers. Cant see this changing until the battery chemistry changes, or super capacitors or something on the horizon.
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Better hope, as is likely, that they are coming close to the maximum that this technology can offer.
Beyond a certain point, increasing energy density turns something that was a fire risk into an explosion risk.
Imagine a car tank full of petrol that was already mixed with all the oxygen needed for complete combustion. Although not physically possible, that’s what makes petrol relatively safe. Chemical explosives generally are compounds with all the oxygen needed incorporated into an organic molecule with non-oxidized carbon and hydrogen. It just needs the right trigger to go off. Thermodynamically, batteries are just the same, only they are weaker in terms of energy density.
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The lamestream (fake) media originally reported this and I posted it to this group but then I tried to find out whether the fire was still burning. I could find no mention anywhere about the ongoing multi-day nature of the fire. If there is an industrial fire or bushfire, there are constant updates. But they don’t provide such updates for dangerous “green” projects.
The next question is, who will pay for the damage? Since such projects run on taxpayer subsidies, will the taxpayer pay for it?
Incidentally the project is owned by French company Neoen. They only invest in solar, wind and battery subsidy farms. In other words they are subsidy farmers and perform no genuine economically useful activity whatsoever.
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That wasn’t meant as a reply to you, michael.
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Same with me. Jo and others have done a great job putting this story together!
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The difference between this and how they hang on to the status of bushfires, or say a chemical storage facility (which it is) in noticeable.
It is still going , day 5, listed as under control not out.
https://emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/?=&bbox=144.21598434448242%2C-38.06079709672887%2C144.43571090698242%2C-38.004955228408264&tm=1627945781582#!/incident/ESTA:210716521
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Yes yarpos, under control is the best I can find, not that it is out. Interestingly though, most of the sites I went to played down the environmental and safety issues in a sort of “move along folks, nothing more to see here” kind of way.
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There was still reports on local radio here in Western Vic yesterday that the fire was burning and indeed the EPA has been involved with air quality monitoring. So, not only the extra expense of the fireys shift work but also EPA staff as well.
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Delay that perfect weather/climate anti-carbon (sic) world they promised us …
The Biden administration has approved a massive solar power project in California that will produce enough power to electrify 90,000 homes.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that producing the solar panels in China using coal-fired electrical power plants to generate electricity will produce almost as much CO2 as the fossil fuel plants the solar power is supposed to replace.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/08/01/dirty-business-chinas-dominant-coal-fired-solar-panel-industry-belches-more-net-carbon-than-oil-or-gas-n1466240
Renewable energy will stabilise the climate and save the planet?
Check your wallet. You’ve been diddled.
Check your brain. You are a fool.
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It wont power any homes for 12 hours a day , let alone 90,000. The grid scale storage issue has not been solved , so this is just more of what has got Ca into trouble already. Go Gavin! Go!
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“The bad news is that producing the solar panels in China using coal-fired electrical power plants to generate electricity will produce almost as much CO2 as the fossil fuel plants the solar power is supposed to replace.”
Isn’t that the case with all solar panels.
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This statement doesn’t mean much as it stands. The comparison has to depend on the overall functional life of the panels.
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It may well be expected (hopefully) to generate the power used by 90,000 homes but it will not power those same homes 24/7/365.
WHEN power is generated is the problem, not how much power it provides.
Dispatchable is a word unknown to those pushing this ‘solution’.
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Greens say the cost will come down but it may go way up as massive safety rules come out. Just like nukes. Each unit should be 100 feet from anything, fo exampke. Or in a special building with enough something to confer up the fire. Or such.
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David,
I did wonder who “designed” the layout with those serried ranks of batteries known for their tendency to catch fire. Probably someone using a computer drawing program. The picture above only shows half the problem, as that shown is duplicated and further containers up to about 100.
A series of barriers preventing radiant heat? Something more substantial than a shipping container with built-in fire control system?
90
To be fair it does appear to have worked. I like the Murphys Law aspect that its one in the centre that gone off. It will take some serious crane work to do the replacement. Not an area I would want to be swinging 13 tonnes over.
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So we won’t be vertically stacking these in cities to save space?
Grenfell Towers would look like a quaint bonfire.
No price is too high for the Prius owner though, and since the MSM won’t even cover this event – or its implications for this greenfield industry – objectively, did it even happen?
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(This was meant to be a stand-alone comment not a reply to another. I think there is a bug in the software.)
The lamestream (fake) media originally reported this and I posted it to this group but then I tried to find out whether the fire was still burning. I could find no mention anywhere about the ongoing multi-day nature of the fire. If there is an industrial fire or bushfire, there are constant updates. But they don’t provide such updates for dangerous “green” projects.
The next question is, who will pay for the damage? Since such projects run on taxpayer subsidies, will the taxpayer pay for it?
Incidentally the project is owned by French company Neoen. They only invest in solar, wind and battery subsidy farms. In other words they are subsidy farmers and perform no genuine economically useful activity whatsoever
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I asked my father about this after he watched 7 news.
“What fire?”
I’m going to a little survey and see how many people came across this on the news.
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Why is that surprising? The MSM and both major parties are in in together spreading lies about man-made catastrophic global warming and thus the urgent need to reduce our emissions. So, any news that’s harmful to their cause has to be suppressed and ignored. Any news that helps their cause, such as exaggerated claims about how the world is heating too fast too much but be amplified and repeated as often as possible. It’s just the way it is in a democracy such as ours. We get the government we deserve because we keep voting for them over and over expecting a different result but never getting it. That’s one definition of insanity, or as I would put it dead voters walking.
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I think this is over-stating things – and resorting to conspiracy. And anyway quite a slice of “the media” are critical of the AGW position.
It’s simply not that interesting or big a story for most people. While a lot of the regulars here are deeply interested in energy sources and their failings, including Tesla batteries, the “newsworthiness” of a factory fire is strictly limited – even in Geelong.
01
Well in most industrial fire call outs, the site owner pays.
That may well be covered by insurance if the assets damaged were insured by the owner/operator.
10
The Left want every hoise to have its own Big Battery. Thus there will be a new fire risk in every house.
Insurance companies already place limitations on how much gasoline or LPG (US = propane) you can store at a home. They might do the same with batteries. Either that or government will allow them to exclude them from covering this risk.
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The insurance companies have already recognised that issue a long time ago. They have been doing some consultations to figure out what the “best practices” should be for home batteries. Here are some from CHUBB:
Best Practices
Results from recent free burn tests combined with ongoing research and development have reinforced the following best practices for safety and property protection associated with ESS:
Lithium-ion, and lithium metal polymer battery systems should be provided with an approved device to preclude, detect, and control thermal runaway (generally found within the Battery Management System).
ESS should incorporate appropriately certified inverters/inverter systems. An inverter is the hardware and embedded software that converts DC battery output to AC electricity for use on the power grid. An ESS should also comply with other recognised safety standards which address risk assessment and controls.
Most ESS will be remotely configurable and connected to the Internet. In order to prevent an intentional or inadvertent cyber-induced failure to the ESS, electrical grid, etc., robust cybersecurity controls must be incorporated within ESS. Security cannot be an afterthought and it needs to be “baked into” the system design. Furthermore, cyber risk assessments need to be conducted and vulnerabilities routinely patched/updated on a regular basis as threats evolve. An appropriate standard to reference is the International Society of Automation (ISA) 99.
Battery systems inside buildings should be housed in a noncombustible, locked cabinet, or other enclosure to prevent access by unauthorised personnel unless located in a separate equipment room accessible only to authorised personnel. In addition, the room housing the batteries should comply with local building codes and other appropriate regulatory requirements. In most cases it is recommended that the batteries be located in a room which is configured as a separate fire compartment from the remainder of the building. The room should be externally accessible for manual firefighting operations.
An ESS located outdoors should be well away from critical buildings or equipment and located in a non-combustible enclosure. Sufficient clearance should be maintained around the installation to provide for fire service access.
Lithium-ion, lithium metal polymer, or other types of sealed batteries with immobilised electrolyte do not require spill control.
Battery ventilation should comply with recognised regulatory, industry and manufacturers’ standards.
Advisory and warning signage in accordance with recognised regulatory, industry and manufacturers standards should be installed.
It is recommended that an approved, monitored, automatic smoke detection system be installed in Li-Ion ESS areas. Sprinkler protection or clean-agent gas fire suppression within the room or enclosure should be designed and installed to the relevant code requirements.
Portable fire extinguishers should be provided in the room or in close proximity to the enclosure. In seismically active areas, battery systems should be seismically braced in accordance with the building code.
A comprehensive operations and maintenance programme is necessary to ensure all monitoring and protective devices are in good working order. Regular inspections should be undertaken to ensure the battery systems are not overheating, or show signs of malfunction. Annual thermographic scanning can help ensure the ESS system is operating within normal parameters.
All ESS systems should have online condition monitoring systems for battery room temperature, and battery modules for charging, temperature, state of charge, state of health, resistance, capacitance, and alarm. The system should be fitted with temperature monitoring which incorporates a high temperature alarm for the battery room and container. Temperatures should be monitored at a constantly attended location.
Installations should have emergency power disconnects to ensure manual, remote, and local disconnect is possible adjacent to the unit.
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G’day PeterS,
Seems to me that those guidelines might need a bit of review.
Sprinkler system for a lithium ion fire?
“It is recommended that an approved, monitored, automatic smoke detection system be installed in Li-Ion ESS areas. Sprinkler protection or clean-agent gas fire suppression within the room or enclosure should be designed and installed to the relevant code requirements.”
I think there are a few other problems with their “best practises”.
Cheers
Dave B
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‘It is recommended that an approved, monitored, automatic smoke detection system be installed in Li-Ion ESS areas. Sprinkler protection or clean-agent gas fire suppression within the room or enclosure should be designed and installed to the relevant code requirements.
Portable fire extinguishers should be provided in the room or in close proximity to the enclosure.’
Correct David, this looks like a cut and paste from a lead acid installation, no amount of monitoring or disconnects will help, you’ll know when there is trouble by the huge fire and plume of toxic fumes.
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“Most ESS will be remotely configurable and connected to the Internet. In order to prevent an intentional or inadvertent cyber-induced failure to the ESS, electrical grid, etc., robust cybersecurity controls must be incorporated within ESS.”
Do you think that is likely to mean something like the power is cut off whenever the internet goes down for more than a minute or so? It’s a serious question. I don’t have much faith in general cybersecurity, and here we are probably not even talking about malicious attacks (though, mentioning no names, I’m sure certain government militaries are giving the subject much attention).
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Victoriastan’s EPA could find no threat from the fumes. Gosh, imagine if it were emissions from something useful like a coal power plant?
Consider this paper:
Toxic fluoride gas emissions from lithium-ion battery fires
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577247/
Perhaps because the fluorine and its compounds are “green” they are not toxic?
The Left even complain about fluoridation of drinking water for dental health so why don’t they complain about the fluoridation of the air we breathe?
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Lies again by officialdom. Next they will say an EV killing its occupants due to fire is not as dangerous as a normal car doing the same. It still amazes me how anyone like the EPA can BS that way and get away with it without being blasted by the MSM and other government officials. Oh, I just remembered; they are all in it together. MSM have lost all credibility and are on the side of officialdom to crash and burn Western civilisation, with PM Morrison as their leader.
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And there’s no need to decontaminate surrounding residential areas because “there is No contamination” from green energy.
But, no worries mate, the electricity users will pick up the tab for this “mishap” and our French investors will be looking for another battery site a bit closer to Melbourne centre.
Geelong is so far away and I’m sure that Dan would want the inner Melbourne tram circuit to use “green power”.
Perhaps a new showpiece battery in that park just opposite Melbourne central station.
Progress, you can’t stop it.
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EPA and their fellow travellers are blatant leftards.
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Where are the automatic fire extinguishing mechanisms? Surely with such structures it should be mandatory with hefty fines for non compliance. It doesn’t matter that it’s a chemical fire and thus harder to control. So what? That’s like saying a nuclear reactor is so hard to control let’s not bother to put in place control procedures to avoid fires and other accidents.
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Your comment got through as mine (4.1) went into moderation. Factories using flammable solvents are required to have suitable precautions.
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Here’s the Neoen website https://www.neoen.com/en I can’t see any reference to extinguishing mechanisms.
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Tesla has an internal liquid cooling system in their Powerwall product https://www.tesla.com/powerpack
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From WUWT March 2021 https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/03/04/how-do-you-extinguish-a-lithium-battery-fire/
Abstract: steel melts around 1500C, so a lithium fire burning at 2000C is hot enough to melt steel.
I know heating low carbon steel to that red/orange glow is the ignition point for cutting/bending and its ~815C
Also a motorcycle exhaust (Harley) is ~500C near the head and ~200C near mufflers which is enough to take skin off from just touching, don’t ask how I know.
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Also consider that Napalm burns from ~800-1200C which is cooler than a Li fire and can be extinguished with a blanket of CO2 or firefighting foam, another nice one renewables.
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What sort of extinguishing system would you propose to put out this type of fire?
Some sort of general system to cool the complex while the fire brigade arrives might be useful. I am pretty sure its been thought through given its a known problem.
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Pretty simple.. as with many industrial fires.. flood the whole thing with water.
Whilst water is not advised for conventional electrical fires, (there are better, more effective options )… lithium batteries are not conventional electrical fires and there is no other practical option to contain and limit the fire,..other than large amounts of water.
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Chad, you know what the chemistry of these Li batteries are?
If they’re LiFePO4 what’s really burning here?
If they’re not LiFePO4, why aren’t they?
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There’s nothing to do but wait.
And suffer the fallout.
They should never have been there.
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Testing in mid winter results in a blaze! The locals will be nervous when this thing is at full capacity in mid summer. Remember that Victorian wildfires are right up there with being the worst of the worst. Real Estate values in Moorobool shire will take a hit. Premier Dan will lose some skin from this.
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I doubt the impact , if any, will extend beyond this week. The repair work will probably get spun as “green jobs”
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The fume?
The polluting fallout?
00
During my 500km fortnightly round trip vigil to visit my fiance, I pass through Baccus Marsh through Anakie via the Plains, but have never noticed any construction work taking place anywhere. Where exactly is this battery installation situated ?
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The link yarpos posted at 13.2.2 includes a location map.
Cheers
Dave B
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In that case, why not get it over with and feed it with oxygen and/or fuel. Might be fun for the firies. They could picture themselves as fireman Montag in Fahrenheit 451.
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Perhaps inject the oxygen and fuel using a big syringe into 80% of the other batteries. The remaining 20% of batteries to wear masks. Explain to the media that if 80% of the batteries are vaccinated this way then it will reach fire immunity and be able to open up. From that point on it will just learn to live with fire, provided the elderly and vulnerable batteries are protected.
Some flattening of the curve may be required. New batteries should be held in quarantine across the corridor from batteries that are on fire for 14 days before use.
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🙂 🙂 🙂
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I am shocked by that comment from a fire professional !
Maybe he has not had the opportunity or advice on how to deal with a lithium battery fire.
If so he should consult his more experienced collegues in Europe or at least watch a few youtube examples.
Ideally he should experiment on a small scale with a burning Li battery, to see how effective a full immersion in water can be.
Those containerised batteries are ideal for full flooding !
00
The company Neoen also makes entertainment lighting including smoke machines, maybe something slipped through delivery?
Just joking but those toxic gases aren’t for people animals and plants, decades ago there was official warnings for Cadmium exposure levels in welding and foundry work which we had to be aware of, a PDF for Australia https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/system/files/documents/2002/health_monitoring_guidance_-_cadmium.pdf
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All the more reason for some sort of fire suppression system to be made mandatory for such installations, with hefty fines for non compliance, and an immediate suspension of all similar systems in place until they do comply. Of course, we won’t see that happening because that would upset their agenda to crash and burn our economy, which is well on track to being completed much sooner than I thought going by the lockdowns.
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The problem Peter, is that there does not seem to be a fire suppression system sufficient to contain an EV fire, let alone something like this. All that can be done is to isolate the fire from everything else, and in the case of this battery facility, that will mean more space between the packs.
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Cadmium is not an element one wants to come in contact with.
I trust someone will study how much escaped and where it went.
I also wonder what the purpose of it is. A bad idea. There had better be an alternative.
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Solar+Wind + batteries are a TOXIC disaster and after about 20 years the entire TOXIC mess has to be buried in landfill FOREVER.
And of course no measurable change to temp or climate by 2050 or 2100 , but a super mega change to taxpayers hip pocket and the super TOXICITY of the environment.
Here’s some of the super long fires on the highways and the battles to try and contain these disasters.
If you’re stupid enough to buy one of these disasters and charge it at home you better not be a sound sleeper, because you won’t survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsuYxFBHsiQ
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Or we could rocket the entire lot into space along with every twit that imposed this scam on humanity.
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Burying LiPo’s?
There’s moisture in the ground.
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Fizz and fume.
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My understanding is that much of the solar panels, and wind turbines are too toxic to go into landfill.
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..well , somebody didnt get that message about not burrying solar panels ( or wind generator fibreglassblades)…. since that is how they are being disposed of currently !
00
In.
Very.
Remote.
Locations.
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You have to love the language. “76 hours to get the blazing battery under control”.
Under control? What does that mean?
Nothing can put out a fire like this. It does not need oxygen. The very good news is that there is no explosion.
In the movies petrol cars and trucks always explode in chase scenes. Especially down a cliff. My understanding is that it is quite rare.
Obviously you should not store a giant battery or an electric car (600kg battery) in a garage next to or inside a house. That is true of petrol cars too but not diesel.
Still it seems quite rare and there was a reason these batteries were stored in the open and spaced apart. The other good news is that the other batteries did not go up too, starting a chain reaction.
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If “under control” means waiting until the toxic fuels burn away then a job well done, oh and I hope all the XR zealots go there to protest GENUINE pollution of the environment.
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Possibly the real job was to make sure the battery immediately next to it did not catch fire from the extreme heat. And the other was to keep the fumes and particulate matter down. There was nothing they could do about the fire or any such fire.
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I doubt they’ll tell us when it’s “out”. How would they know, short of leaving it, apparently not burning, for at least one week? Or should that be two? Or three? Under guard.
And it would be too embarrassing to admit..
Cheers
Dave B
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I’m not that far from the battery site, think I’ll go for a drive and have a look ask questions take photos and video of what I can get.
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its public information
https://emergency.vic.gov.au/respond/?=&bbox=144.21598434448242%2C-38.06079709672887%2C144.43571090698242%2C-38.004955228408264&tm=1627945781582#!/incident/ESTA:210716521
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That’s all good but there’s nothing like eyewitness reports, boots on the ground so to speak.
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was responding to David, by all means go and have a geek
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Thanks yarpos,
Still showing “under control”.
The NSW version never indicates “out”, just removes the entry completely. I assume(d?) the Vic site does the same, so a non-regular viewer would not see when that state was reached. True?
Cheers
Dave B
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“Under control” is possibly govt speak for keeping it from spreading but still burning.
40
yep, standard fire service speak
40
I think they mean that the media has the story under control.
10
What could go wrong, after all it was Vic Premier Disaster Dan’s Minister for Energy who announced the project in Nov 2020.
“to boost the state’s energy reliability, drive down electricity prices and support Victoria’s transition to renewable energy – as well as creating local jobs.”
“Victorians pay less for their power – with independent analysis showing that every $1 invested in the battery will deliver more than $2 in benefits.”
The state has signed an $84 million contract with Neoen for the project.
The 300 MW / 450 MWh battery will consist of 210 Tesla Megapacks.
Operations 20+ years.
The Australian Energy Council said the Government’s decision to develop the battery in Geelong without any independent regulatory scrutiny of costs and benefits or clarity of how it would participate in the energy market was a bad idea.
150
So, was this fire was what we used to call (years ago) an insurance job?
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LOL, “Victorians pay less for their power – with independent analysis showing that every $1 invested in the battery will deliver more than $2 in benefits.”
How are those ‘benefits’ looking now Lily, poof, up in smoke.
20
“boost the States energy reliability…” which they have steadily destroyed
“$1 spent on batteries , gives $2 benefits” OMG! just shoutdown VIC industry and keep installing batteries, its a magic pudding. A basic examination of that spreadsheets would find it littered with soft “savings” and flawed assumptions to hit the target selling point. None of them will lower consumer costs.
Repeat after me Dan and Lily, I cannot lower consumer costs by adding intermittency, complexity and redundancy.
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Electric bike fires are also very high risk and here’s a few tips about charging etc? Many house fires have been caused by these very small batteries, but still very high risk for the average family.
Long list of E Bike battery fires and disasters at the link.
http://jimmymacontwowheels.com/battery-fires-create-concerns-for-every-electric-bike-owner/
A few tips.
Until a company offers an e-bike-specific, certified, consumer-level, battery storage container, there are valuable tips e-bike owners need to adopt today to protect themselves:
1. Never leave a battery charging unattended. Day or night.
2. Don’t overcharge batteries.
3. Don’t charge batteries near combustible or explosive materials.
4. Don’t charge a battery in a confined space like a motorhome, RV, boat, automobile, van or shed.
5. Never charge a battery that has been dropped, damaged or dinged.
6. Never modify a battery.
7. Use only batteries recommended and approved by your bike’s manufacturer.
8. Charge batteries on wire shelving with rollers. This allows an overheating or flaming battery to be quickly rolled away from structures.
50
So how long would this Geelong battery disaster power Victoria? Would it be for 10 minutes , 20 minutes? Anyone care to GUESS?
00
I heard somewhere that it was more to do with the interconnector link with NSW, not to power Danistan.
00
No need to guess… it is simple…that whole battery CANNOT power Victoria at all.
It is a 300MW (450MWh) capacity facility…Victoria requires 6000 MW on average,..continuously !
So, at best it could “dribble” its 300 MW dischage rate to victoria for maybe 1.5 hrs.
..possibly enough to keep the Government services operating !
10
None of battery installations are about raw energy delivery to meet demand. The are more about frequency stability and riding through brief troughs (the interconnector story)
40
Hi Neville,
If the numbers 300 MW and 450 MWh are correct, then this battery can supply a maximum of 300 MW, if starting from a fully charged state, for 450 MWh / 300 MW hours. I think that comes to 1.5 hours.
As to determining Victoria’s power requirements at any one time, Anton Lang (“TonyfromOz”) can provide a much more detailed response than this “quick and dirty” one of mine. But here goes:
Looking at today’s numbers at https://anero.id/energy/, and selecting “VIC1” in the region tab below the chart showing “Today’s Energy Production by Source”, I see that maximum demand during the 24-hour period shown varies from a minimum of about 4.4 GW during the early hours to a daily maximum of 7.0 GW, or in MW, over a range of 4400-7000 MW.
The battery can supply a maximum of 300 MW, no more than that, so the strictly correct answer to your question is that it cannot “power Victoria” for any time period at all. If, for the sake of the exercise, we were to presume the hypothetical situation that it could provide say the minimum of the above demand figures, remembering that it cannot, then the length of time that such a hypothetical 450 MWh battery could “power” Victoria is 450 MWh / 4400 MW hours. If my calculations are correct, the answer is 0.102 hours, or 6.14 minutes. But, as I say, this battery’s output, if we are to believe the figures provided by the operator, is limited to a maximum output of 300 MW, so it cannot address the whole of Victoria demand ever.
A more useful calculation might be to ask how many of these 450 MWh batteries would be required to “replace” Victoria’s brown coal powerstation capacity.
Here in Australia, I am aware that calculations such as these have been done by Rafe Champion’s group, and I am aware of such studies elsewhere, so would not presume to question their findings. But again, here is a “quick and dirty” estimate.
From the chart quoted above, Victoria’s brown coal powerstations seem to produce power at a fairly constant 3700-3800 MW for a large proportion of the time, so, for the sake of round figures, let’s say that 4000 MW of power has to be found as a replacement. Presuming that, given the present, mad, obsession with renewables, that the replacement will come by increasing wind and solar generation, then “big batteries” will be required to cover those periods when there is no wind, and no sun (cloudy days).
The first figure that has to be agreed upon is: what is an acceptable minimum time required for the batteries to be availabe to provide that minimum required power of 4000 MW?
The engineer in me says: take the maximum observed no-wind, no-sunlight period, and double it. I think we’re looking at a minimum period of 7 days for such a period. No doubt there would be much argument from some quarters that this is excessive, but engineers are required to work to acceptable safety margins.
It is a relatively simple calculation to determine the MWh requirement:
4000 MW x 7 days x 24 hours/day = 672,000 MWh
To find the number of 450 MWh battery units required: 672,000/450
That’s 1494 “big batteries”, (the figure has to be rounded up to the next digit, not down when we speak of number of units required), just to attempt to “replace” the brown coal powerstation capacity.
A moment’s thought indicates that, even though others might argue that my safety margin is excessive, even half that number (using a 3.5 day supply period requirement), is still a huge number of “big batteries”. And, don’t forget, this ballpark calculation presumes that all of these batteries are from a state of fully-charged at the beginning of any such period.
Here are a few inconvenient questions:
1. How much additional wind and solar capacity is required to meet the fully-charged-at-all-times requirement?
2. What is the up-front CO2 emissions resulting from the mining, milling, manufacture, transport, installation, etc., of so many “big batteries”? (That’s the CO2 emitted even before they are commissioned.)
3. What is the land use requirement for all these “big batteries”? (Include any additional spacing requirement that will surely result from the imposition of the necessary safety standards that will result from this present fire.)
4. What is the mining and other environmental impact of the requirement for the provision of all of the toxic materials that are clearly a requirement in the building of these “big batteries”?
And that is resulting just from the presumed “replacement” by “big batteries” of one set of the coal-fired powerstation requirement merely for the State of Victoria. What are the effects of attempting such a replacement Australia-wide?
I have no doubt that others here will find a further raft of equally difficult, extremely inconvenient, questions.
Trusting, Neville, that these ponderings go some way to addressing your question.
And, again Jo, particularly given your handicapped state, thanks heaps, as always, for such as this post.
Regards to All,
Paul Miskelly
50
Some good figures there Paul. Any of those battery installations (eg SA etc) always appear to provide only “minutes” of total state supply. I have always understood their main function is to smooth the transition between wind power decreasing and normal FF electricity generation ramping up. Then once the batteries are discharged they are useless until fully charged up again. But back to the transition between windowed generation decreasing and FF ramping up- with our more accurate wind prediction forecasts I know virtually to the hour (5 days ahead) when the wind will be blowing and what speed. My business depends on that forecast because I do agricultural spraying. If the same forecasts are applied to wind power electricity generation it should be easy to ramp up FF power generation just before wind lulls. Hence, no practical need for these battery installations. Maybe I’m missing something???
20
The cynical part of my old lizard brain tells me that TESLA supplied these batteries to the state of Victoria really cheaply. That, at the end of the day. it’s just a big marketing exercise to sell TESLA power walls to the everyday suburban house with solar panels. TESLA can state “Look TESLA batteries power the state of Vic, so go out and buy one for your house!!”.
20
Paul, far too detailed…..but i think you ignored the 15-20% energy loss between power to charge and useful discharged power for the battery !….
However,.we agree that battery is no good for bulk power supply !
10
Hi “Chad”,
I disagree. My supposedly too-detailed scenario has a very serious purpose.
I merely provided a “back-of-envelope” calculation that demonstrates that, even if we ignore the detail of the actual energy losses, the actual depth of discharge achievable, etc., and all those other very significant engineering realities that result in a very significant increase in the actual number of “big batteries” required, what my numbers show is that what we have here is a completely ineffective and totally pointless “solution” as a means to effect a policy to substitute and replace so-called “dirty” coal-fired generation.
Policymakers, who, in my experience, are for the most part completely ignorant of engineering realities, just might take some notice of the mouth-watering numbers that I present here. After all, it is possible, however unlikely, but when forced to provide answers to such as treasurers, that they are capable of multiplying the capital cost of one 450 MWh battery by the necessary lazy 1500 or so demonstrated as unavoidable by this analysis and do a comparison with Victoria’s GDP data. That’s when it becomes interesting. It’s at that point, I suggest, that one lays in with the engineering realities.
Cheers,
Paul Miskelly
40
This may rival coode island for the time required to extinguish it and toxic mess that that it leaves behind , but as usual “nothing to see here”……
60
Chemical fires do seem to be a VIC specialty. Coode Island, northern suburbs chemical storages, tyre dumps, plastics recyclers. Maybe I just dont see the news from other States. I get the feeling our Environmental Dept is as effective as our Health Dept.
40
It is clear that EV will eventually replace ICV.
Also, socialist and christian ideals sound very attractive.
Pity, we will not live long enough to see them all to success.
06
GEEEZZZZ Vlad and can you enlighten us how you would measure the so called future success of your EVs?
40
Neville,
Same way as ABC replace commercial information sources – by government decree.
10
OK Vlad so more Govt spending and more BS and fra-d from their ABC somehow equals success?
20
No Vlad, it is not clear, it is clear though that 1 in 5 EV owners are going back to ICE powe,r citing inconvenience of charging and lack of viable benefit of owning an EV, not to mention fierce depreciation.
40
Just got an online quote for a Model 3 Tesla, only twice as much as my wifes Subaru XV. Better than I thought it would be.
10
Ronin / Neville,
All strong arguments against. Government / elite push is stronger.
Do not take me for Greta’s fan, please, but I think this battle (if and when…) will not be won by engineers.
10
Even the L W loons at the Guardian are correct sometimes.
Here they report on a house fire in Sydney caused by an E bike battery that was charging at the house and the 7 occupants had to be rescued.
And more than one level of the house was on fire and caused by this very small battery. Perhaps 2 KGs, and a very small Nissan Leaf battery would be about 400 KGs and a $140,000 Tesla about 600 KGs.
So Leaf about 200 times and Tesla about 300 times the size of the bike battery. WAKEY, WAKEY?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/19/e-bike-left-on-charge-blamed-after-fire-engulfs-sydney-home
50
I suspect the cell quality in the ebikes might be at the lower end of the spectrum also. Being a lower cost item overall.
41
You are likely correct Yarpos, as most of the Ebike batteries are assembled in China.
There is a whole mess in the consumer battery supply from Asia generally with even quality reject , defective, cells from manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, LG, etc being “rewrapped” by 3rd party wholesalers and filtered into the supply chain as “A1”grade cells.
To the average user, or dubious sub assembler, those cells are indistinguishable from the real deal…….but can be dangerous in use.
Further risk is present in the BMS electronics, essential for safe battery use, where poor design, cheap components, and construction/assembly can lead to pack failure.
…same again with the battery charger design and build.
20
The link on the CFA website has been removed! Why would they do that?
50
Suppression of inconvenient information, think of one of these battery fires occurring in the middle of bushfire season when every truck is needed to save lives and property, you’d hope the battery fire didn’t spread and the right moral decision is made.
50
Yes Yonniestone and let’s hope that we don’t allow govts to waste millions of $ on EV fire trucks to fight our future fires.
But don’t be surprised if some Labor or Greens pollies start promoting this type of lunacy in the future.
50
I see on their site, as at 08:45 this morning two appliances are still on scene.
20
Do they leave historic links to other fires up?
10
So……..regenerarive forest fires bad for the environment, but fires of planet saving boxes of heavy metal which have to run their course are an acceptable price to pay? I’m unaware of how many 13 tonne boxes of heavy metals it takes for a 450 mWh fire, but if sparks from one kept it burning for 3 days, what is the half life of a fire of the whole plant?
Could someone call the science writer at the Guardian or ABC and ask them for their results to that question, as they’ve no doubt already calculated that; consummate investigative journalists that they are!
60
depends if the all go up together or sequentially I suppose
10
The underlying feature of these oversized battery packs that really irritates me is that they are arbitrage machines. They buy electricity when it is cheap and sell it when it is expensive. And as an added bonus governments subsidize their construction.
80
Its just a business like any other Forrest. At least it may provide some sort of sink for unwanted wind power generating high when demand is low. They sell it back at peak demand and somehow this drives down costs down; somehow.
All this to appease an imaginary CO2 God and massage some egos.
10
Not quite like any other. Most businesses involve risk. When there is no chance you can lose it becomes a honeypot for corruption.
10
And fill some “out of the way” bank accounts.
00
Alright, had I been a science teacher of junior school I could it explain it a little more clearly than through Entropy and Heat Death of Universe.
Still, how can sane people believe that in saving energy by adding 500 kg battery to a 100 kg useful load? Always, anytime, anywhere!
00
Who says they are saving energy and what are the numbers about?
00
Dono, yarpos…
In theory some energy might be saved on a hilly road by a regeneration process.
Or may be not.
00
The simple fact that it has taken days to burn out is , in some ways, a blessing from a chemical fire point of view.
Remember what happened in Beirut with that Amonia chemical fire ?… a big explosion !
Now obviously the 26 tons of batteries in Geelong is much less than the 6000 tons of Beirut ammonia, but a slow burn is better than a quick explosion, and some chemical reactions do not need much mass to be catastrophic,
If nothing else a explosion type ignition would have then propogated to other battery container units and a runaway effect started.
So a long burn is the lesser of evils.
Also, i believe the “experts” in fire management involved have been rather lacking in their response.
Each of those containers houses some 200,000 + individual cylindrical battery cells , arranged in racks and sub divided into further separate groups.
These battery fires start in one small area or group of cells ( somtimes only a single cell ), and spread by “Thermal runaway” heat transfer…one cell burning, overheats and ignites its neighbour.
A single cell only contains enough fuel to burn for a minute or two
So, if you can flood the entire assembly of racked cells sufficiently to soak away the heat, you do not just “contain” the fire source,..but you stop it spreading and becoming bigger, and shorten the total burn time
In effect this is proven by the fact that the separated Megapack containers prevented the whole facility going up in smoke !
Those guys should have devised a way to seal the container and flood the entire thing with water.
Infact that ability should be designed into the container to start with.
Teslas liquid cell cooling is trivial in terms of its heat removal capacity relative to a fire.
It is intended only to stabilise heat distribution during operation, not a fire emergency. !
20
Eventual shape of Big Battery will be like my old submarine.
00
I suspect a real reason to let it burn was financial, not technical.
Fire Chief evaluated the risk of a nearest pair fair (they are set in pairs, are they not?) and compared it with nearly definite wipe off of the whole installation.
00
How does allowing the fire to double in size improve the chances for the rest of the site ?
I suspect he had no choice, and the 2nd container was already burning before he could act to stop it.
10
To me it looks like, two back-to-back containers either share a steel wall or have insufficient gap between them.
So the second battery (East of burning one) was just less lucky, than the one South of it, hence it ignited itself.
If any other battery caught the fire we would hear about it by now.
Maybe the session is not to install them back-to-back.
00
Probably.
00
Seems like a lot of electrical potential to be filling with water.
00
Sorry, did not finish… – flooding with water or foam would mean destruction of the lot.
00
…^^^…and letting them burn doesnt ?.?
10
Sorry, Chad, I have not idea what the IP-rating of a battery container is.
It looks like, the roof over the whole installation is “optional”, so the ordinary rain is acceptable exposure. The cooling fans at least must be good in the rain.
Using fire hoses on a charged battery can be totally different scenario.
00
You will find the containers are designed to be “weatherproof”
If you are imagining flooding the container would somehow create a bigger problem than letting it burn……. then you are mistaken.
The official recomendation from fire authorities for dealing with EV battery pack fires is to imerse the vehicle in a water tank.!
Standard practice for battery users wanting to safely dispose of damaged or unwanted lipo batteries is to soak them in a bucket of salt water to safely discharge them to 0volts before recycling .
10
Chad, of course they are IP-something very high.
You are right regarding best way to “safely disposal”.
I am talking about negative $$ value of the site post-fire. Much worst scenario than replacing a couple of batteries / containers.
An experienced power distribution designer can correct me. Can you imagine firefighting energised substation with water hoses?
Maybe gentle shower on the adjacent units – to extinguish fly-off spark would be acceptable?
00
But as i have said, this is not an “energised substation”… it is a burning battery with no other way of subdueing the heat and flames.
A “gentle shower” is probably what the Fireies tried and decided it wasnt working.!
Once a Li battery is burning, there is little worse that can happen…
……other than the heat ignites more adjacent batteries !
00
Maybe each unit should have a cement block wall around it so the unit on fire can be flooded without affecting the rest of the installation.?
00
‘The official recommendation from fire authorities for dealing with EV battery pack fires is to immerse the vehicle in a water tank.!’
I would love to see an ‘official’ video of the procedure to pick up a furiously burning Tesla car and deposit it into a suitable tank of water, should be entertaining. !
10
Perhaps one day a culture built around carbon fuel use will end up being viewed with the same wistful admiration now reserved for people like the Amish.
As for these mega-batteries, I wonder whether they could be placed in safety boxes which can be hermetically sealed should the unit ignite.
00
Jo
Yet again we have wrong terminology related to battery size. The ruinables crowd have taken to saying ‘300MW’ battery. Presumably to fool the ignorant that his approximates a 300MW power station.
We need to stop this completely incorrect naming. It is in all actuality a 300MW hr battery. So its capacity is actually around 5% of said 300MW plant, a plant which can produce 24/7 and does not have to be charged to work… And does not have catastrophic fires that cannot be put out, a useable life of 10 years vs 50 or more for the power plant…
30
Hi “Prophet of Boom”,
You might care to have a look at any of the documents released by the owner of the “big battery”, Neoen P/L, to check the numbers. See, for example: https://www.neoen.com/var/fichiers/2021-02-25-media-release-vbb-fc.pdf .
According to the above documentation, the battery is rated at 300 MW, with a capacity of 450 MWh, as per the newspaper article that Jo quoted.
No doubt, as you suggest, the more ignorant politicians and policymakers see the figure of 300 MW as being equivalent to a 300 MW powerstation, which of course it most definitely is not.
However, the other figure is there: according to the owners, it is a battery with a stated capacity of 450 MWh, not 300 MWh as you surmise.
Now, would you like to explain where you obtain the “5% of said 300 MW plant”? Are you endeavouring to compare the battery’s output with that of a real 300 MW powerstation? You may be correct in what you suggest, but I am somewhat confused.
I take the 300 MW figure to mean that the battery is capable of supplying 300 MW, albeit for a short period only, before it runs out of charge, a period which would be a maximum of 450/300, or 1.5 hours. Of course, such factors as the permitted depth of discharge may mean that the actual period is significantly less than 1.5 hours. I agree on that point: One and a half hours maximum before it runs flat doesn’t make the “big battery” much of a substitute for a real 300 MW generator. Pathetic really.
Of course, the manufacturer/owner could be challenged to back up the 300 MW output rating by providing actual performance data. The owner could also be required to be rather more forthcoming in making it clear that the 450 MWh capacity places real limitations on the battery’s ability to substitute for a real generator in the scenario where the failure of a real generator requires immediate replacement by a substitute that will continue to perform continuously throughout and for a prolonged period, for example, days or weeks, until repairs are effected.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
30
I think he just approximated 1/24th to 5% (ahould be 4%) using the hour literally versus 24 hours from a power station.
00
MW and MWh are much too complicated for the sheeple.
So, the greenies prefer to talk in terms of # of typical homes served. And then fail to mention that such storage systems will only serve said homes for an hour or so. At this point they’re nothing more than really big doorstops until they are recharged by an army of fairies.
11
“The best way to deal with these things is to let them burn until they are burnt out. ”
This is false. The best way to deal with these things is to design, build, and operate such a facility responsibly so as to prevent and mitigate a fire, then to equip, train, and staff the local firefighting services to deal with it. The above is a covering statement for an incompetetent bureaucracy.
40
Have to agree with you, dk_.
The fire is but one safety aspect of battery technology as the article explains. We already know that some everyday domestic batteries can explode into flames when disposed of incorrectly. We also know there is high toxicity in the smoke produced from these fires. But, more importantly, we do not know if the mass producers of these batteries know why they sometimes explode and if there is a way of preventing them from doing so. On face value this doesn’t seem to be a very green solution for our planet at all given the high cost of the product, the intention behind its use, and its inability to meet that intention safely and reliably.
Is this what happens when a product is forced onto the market rather than a winner in the general competition that produces better answers to old problems over realistic timescales? Would there even be a market for EVs if it wasn’t for the huge subsidies being paid?
20
UK-Weather Lass, I will differ with you on some of that. People do know how to prevent hazardous material fires from becoming large scale disasters, and do also know how to put out metal fires. These Tesla battery facilities are exempted from those considerations because of the myth that the batteries are safe. The costs of making batteries safe and mitigating disasters are so high that they are not profitable to build operate or produce. Those costs cannot be permitted on the books, or no one would ever buy the system.
This is how charlatans operate.
00
If a piece of green tech fails or even explodes spectacularly, but no mainstream journalist reports on it, did it really happen?
30
There is one problem in basic design here.
To space the units so that they can be flooded with sufficient water to stop the fire causes a HUGE problem called Voltage Drop.
Space means cables and cables have that problem in spades!
These mega batteries can never be made safe enough to perform as intended the engineering problems present trade-offs that result in closer spacing to allow for maximum out-put. That out put drops alarmingly when the space between individual cells is increased!
10
Water-based fire fighting agents are unsuitable for metal fires. Most firefighting agencies are not equipped for metal fires, and are minimally equipped for hazardous chemical fires. Mass for mass, silica sand is better for metal fire supression, but is harder to deliver in quantity and harder to store properly for use. You are right about voltage drop, but the main problem is that to make lithium batteries safe, they would become as heavy as almost any other technology. The hazard is from using lithium technology inappropriately — lithium batteries have no advantage in a stationary facility, except to the seller.
00
Ok so these things aren’t batteries, they’re capacitors. In effect. They are for frequency stabilisation only. That’s coming from people in the industry. Hence “capacitors”. I can’t wait until the little suburban ones in Sydney catch fire. Matt Kean’s in for a hiding then.
00
How is it going to go in Summer, that is the operative question!
00
Hahaha. I have tried (and failed) to explain to my fellow California lefties the hazards associated with large Li-Ion batteries.
They don’t believe fires are an issue and they insist that spent batteries can be easily and cheaply recycled.
This despite the fact that CA has proven unable to even recycle plastic beverage bottles. We used to ship them to China but the Chinese don’t want or need any more of our crap. I still put mine in the recycle bin so they can be dumped into landfill.
20