According to foreign media reports, on May 15th local time, a fire broke out at the Gateway energy storage plant in Otay Mesa, San Diego, California, USA. It took firefighters more than a day to basically control the fire, but the battery at the plant has since reignited multiple times.
According to foreign media reports on May 21st, the energy storage plant has been burning for six days, and fire officials still cannot accurately estimate how long the fire will continue.
Robert Rezende, the commander of the San Diego Fire and Rescue Bureau and emergency coordinator for alternative energy, said that historically, it has been common to see this chain of destruction lasting for a longer period of time, almost like a domino effect.
Brent Pascua, the captain of the San Diego branch of the California Fire Department, also mentioned, “After talking to experts, they have encountered several similar incidents in the past, each lasting from seven days to several weeks, and we are unsure. We are preparing for the worst-case scenario and plan to stay here for a long time, two to four weeks, and then re evaluate.”
Battery Network noticed that in June 2023, two lithium-ion energy storage stations in Warwick, New York, USA, caught fire during a storm, which lasted for over a week.
In October 2023, a fire broke out at the Idaho Power substation energy storage facility near Melba, Idaho, USA, causing at least 8 independent unit batteries to catch fire. The fire lasted for several days.
It is reported that the installed capacity of Gateway energy storage power station is 250MW/250MWh. In August 2020, the first phase of the project, with a capacity of 230MW, was put into operation and became the world’s largest energy storage project at that time. The project also plans to expand to 250MW for 4 hours, forming a 1000MWh energy storage system.
The Gateway energy storage power station is operated by American energy company LS Power, with NEC ES providing energy storage system integration solutions and LG Chem providing battery cells, which are ternary lithium batteries.
It is worth mentioning that there are reports indicating that NEC ES, the energy storage integrator of the project, announced bankruptcy and withdrew from the energy storage business before the first phase of the project was put into operation.
In addition, just a month ago (April 27th), a fire broke out in a lithium battery energy storage container located in the commercial district of Nilmore, Germany, causing two firefighters to be injured during the rescue process.
According to relevant media reports, the manufacturer of the battery energy storage system that exploded this time is Germany’s INTILION company, and the battery cells are lithium iron phosphate batteries.
On April 16th, California battery storage became the largest single source of electricity for the California power grid during peak evening hours for the first time in the global power system. The role of energy storage in regulating power sources is attributed to the significant difference in peak and valley electricity prices in the California electricity market, which provides enormous profit potential for energy storage.
From “overwhelming wealth and prosperity” to “disasters falling from heaven”, two large energy storage power plants caught fire one after another within a month. The safety issues of energy storage, which is a trillion dollar race track, cannot be ignored!
Wu Kai, Chief Scientist of CATL, once bluntly stated that as a critical infrastructure industry that involves both life and property safety as well as power system operation safety, the trial and error cost of energy storage is extremely high; We cannot follow the old path of pursuing speed first and then quality. We must adhere to the trustworthy, sustainable, and high-quality development of the energy storage industry from the beginning.
Public information shows that safety issues have always been one of the main pain points restricting the development of energy storage, a trillion dollar track. Lithium batteries are currently one of the most commonly used energy storage battery technologies, but due to the fact that the electrolyte of lithium batteries is mostly organic solvents, and there are inevitably a few impurities such as dust that can easily damage the separator during the manufacturing process, thermal runaway is prone to occur, causing internal short circuits, leading to a series of problems such as fire, battery explosion, environmental pollution, and energy supply interruption.
From the perspective of materials, the positive electrode material of ternary batteries is generally transition metal oxides. Once the positive electrode decomposes, it will be accompanied by the release of oxygen. Under the action of oxygen, the electrolyte is prone to reaction, which increases the risk of thermal runaway of the battery compared to lithium iron phosphate materials.
In the early days, Japanese and Korean battery companies mostly used ternary batteries, while Chinese battery companies mainly used relatively safe lithium iron phosphate batteries. With the frequent occurrence of safety accidents such as ternary battery energy storage fires, more and more Japanese and Korean companies are using lithium iron phosphate batteries.
In terms of shipment volume, the proportion of China’s energy storage battery shipments in the world has exceeded 90%. According to the “White Paper on the Development of China’s Energy Storage Industry (2024)” jointly released by research institutions EVTank, Ivy Economic Research Institute, and China Battery Industry Research Institute, the global shipment volume of energy storage batteries reached 224.2 GWh in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 40.7%. Among them, the shipment volume of energy storage batteries from Chinese enterprises was 203.8 GWh, accounting for 90.9% of the global shipment volume of energy storage batteries.
Another set of data from the National Energy Administration also shows that as of the end of 2023, the installed capacity of new energy storage systems in operation nationwide has reached 31.39 million kilowatts. Among them, the newly installed capacity of new energy storage in 2023 is about 22.6 million kilowatts, which is 2.6 times the total of previous years. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, the cumulative installed capacity of new energy storage projects that have been built and put into operation in China has reached 35.3 million kilowatts/77.68 million kilowatt hours, an increase of over 210% compared to the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Although the new type of energy storage covers various technologies such as lithium batteries, flow batteries, flywheels, compressed air, hydrogen (ammonia) energy storage, thermal (cold) energy storage, etc., lithium batteries still dominate at present.
Therefore, while the energy storage industry is developing rapidly, China also attaches great importance to industrial security.
In July 2023, the national standard “Safety Regulations for Electrochemical Energy Storage Power Stations” began to be implemented. This new national standard for energy storage safety is applicable to lithium-ion batteries, lead-acid (carbon) batteries, flow batteries, and water electrolysis hydrogen/fuel cell energy storage power stations. This standard specifies the safety technical requirements, operation, maintenance, inspection, testing, and other aspects of various equipment such as electrochemical energy storage power station energy storage batteries, BMS, PCS, monitoring, fire protection, heating ventilation and air conditioning systems, prefabricated cabins, etc.
In November 2023, the Comprehensive Department of the National Energy Administration issued a notice on strengthening the safety operation risk monitoring of electrochemical energy storage power stations on the power generation side of the power grid, proposing to enhance the ability of operation risk monitoring and analysis early warning. Electric power enterprises should monitor and manage the safety status of electrochemical energy storage power station battery packs, battery management systems (BMS), energy management systems (EMS), energy storage converters (PCS), fire protection systems, network security, operating environment, and other important electrical equipment invested and operated by their own enterprises. They should regularly analyze the safety operation situation, strengthen operational risk warning and emergency response, and be able to timely warn and take effective measures to eliminate safety hazards for equipment and systems that have safety hazards. All power companies should complete their monitoring capacity building before December 31, 2024, and all new and existing electrochemical energy storage power stations should be included in the monitoring scope after 2025.
Meanwhile, in addition to safety issues, the price war in the field of energy storage batteries is also continuing to spread. Since the second half of 2023, the price of energy storage batteries has repeatedly hit new lows, with many companies offering energy storage cells priced below 0.4 yuan/Wh.
On May 14th, China Petroleum Group Jichai Power Co., Ltd. issued a bidding announcement for the framework agreement of the electrical components of the 5MWh liquid cooled energy storage system. The battery cells of the project use lithium iron phosphate batteries, with a maximum price limit of 0.33 yuan/Wh. In the bidding for the energy storage project of Jichai Power at the end of February, the price limit for battery cells was 0.45 yuan/Wh.
Recently, when interacting with investors, Yiwei Lithium Energy stated that customers will consider energy storage battery products from several dimensions: first, the brand; The second is product quality, including product performance and safety performance; The third is after-sales guarantee. On the one hand, it considers the after-sales service ability of the enterprise, and on the other hand, it considers whether the enterprise has long-term sustainable development ability. Energy storage products have a long life cycle, and enterprises that produce energy storage batteries can only provide after-sales support for their products if they have a long life cycle of existence; The last dimension is product price.
Post time: Jun-01-2024