Late on Saturday evening, a major energy storage project in the USA was taken offline after an incident involving some battery modules.
At 300MW/1,200MWh, Phase 1 of Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Monterey County, California is the world’s largest operational battery energy storage system (BESS). LG Energy Solution supplied 4,500 TR1300 racks containing JH4 high energy cells for the project, pre-assembled at LG’s factory prior to shipping to reduce construction time and associated installation costs.
Phase 1 commenced commercial operations on December 11, 2020. The batteries charge up during the day, taking advantage of local solar energy generation, and discharge back to the grid as solar electricity production drops in the evenings.
In the incident on Saturday evening (Sunday morning in Australia), integrated safety systems detected “a number” of battery modules operating at a temperature above operational standards, which triggered targeted sprinkler systems that doused the affected modules.
Owner of the facility Vistra Corp says while the incident was controlled and contained without the need for outside assistance, the local fire department was called in as part of response planning.
A local news channel reported the incident was a bit more than battery modules getting a little warm, with the firies allegedly stating some battery racks had been “scorched” and wires “melted”.
h/t roaddog
We replaced fossil power plants that were built in the 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s and 50’s with BS New Age “renewable energy” solar and wind power plants that last 5, 10, 15, rarely 20 years, and then end up in landfills. Will these battery storage facilities last 5 years? Will they replace the battery modules, or just scrap the whole facility?
Tell me how these are better for the environment again?
If they don’t burn to the ground first with overcharging problems.
I believe they’re biggest engineering mistakes is trying to integrate higher voltage DC power into our cheapened out AC wiring.
Fire, fire, fire…
Ops, now they want you charging away from your home.
This too is where computer chips and components are not compatible in mixing changing over all the time.
Not to mention the astromically more expensive.
I doubt that the plan is to go back to Edison’s original DC system. Tesla (Nikola, not the car) was right about AC.
One word: TRANSFORMERS.
Electrical types will get it, unless they have gone to the Dark Side.
Warehouse-sized battery arrays are “incidents” waiting to happen. Smaller systems, as in the several I have worked on out on remote / farming properties are a different matter.They mean you can use all conventional AC-powered lights, pumps, white-goods, fans, etc IF you install a big enough system, which means enough, HIGH quality PV panels, serious cabling back to the “shed”, SERIOUS, deep-cycled batteries and a REAL, pure-sinewave inverter. Feeding your fridge , etc. with “noisy” / “lumpy” power will bring about expensive smells from the motor.
Snow in Winter? Panels MUST be angled and “treated” so that the snow that falls, slides straight off and if it does accumulate, will fall off under its own weight. (No light, no “spark”). PV panels get hot when operating; keep them well spaced off the roof to allow air convection cooling.. Better still, mount them in “clusters” atop serious steel poles in the ground. NOT rigidly mounted, but on a “gimbals” so that each array can be easily adjusted as the tracking angle of the Sun changes through the year. This also makes the regular task of CLEANING the panels SAFER and easier. If you die falling off a ladder whilst cleaning your panels on a two-storey roof, you might make it into the Gaia’s Book of Eco-martyrs, but a Darwin award is assured.
Extreme ambient heat and cold WILL degrade the performance of the panels AND the storage batteries. Beware corrosive fumes from the batteries: Small, steel sheds are NOT ideal places to keep lots of working wet-cell batteries. I’ve seen quite a few good timber ones and some of the “flat-pack” heavy-duty plastic” garden sheds are worth a look.
This stuff is NOT for the lazy or technophobic.
I take your point rd but you need to be asking a bigger question. The real question should be: “How did we come to a point where facts are being replaced by BS New Age Truth i.e. wishful thinking?” Yet even that is an inadequate question. What we have is far worse than wishful thinking. We are living in a culture that could be accurately described as a “theater of the absurd”. This is what happens when human existence has no meaning or purpose. Logical reasoning gives way to the irrationality of dreams until it reaches its ultimate end: absurdity.
Answer: the systemic degeneration of our public education system.
Now I feel fortunate that I was probably in the LAST HS graduating class that wasn’t substantially infected with the dumbing-down of the curriculum. Class of ‘74
The green economy is going to be the most hilarious disaster ever.
Except for the starvation, freezing and death, there will be laughter…and you know you can’t have manslaughter without laughter.
You may have already been witnessing some megabucks projects of high-rises catching fire as everything is computerized and the risk of fire from modern age materials are flammable.
There are thousands of instances of batteries being the cause including dangers of flying different batteries by planes.
Buses have broken chassis from weight to burning down whole fleets recharging.
But our politicians are hell bent on this is our future path, which is a disaster.
Too true! My neighbour’s son accidentally burned down the rental house he was living in. He was charging his power tool batteries in the attached sunroom when one burst into flame…he couldn’t put the fire out. He gave up trying and turned his attention to getting his pets to safety before the smoke overcame them and himself.
He lost pretty much everything except the job tools in his truck.
It’s frustrating to watch some innumerate Canadians thinking that there is some actual significance to the climate change alternatives among the parties. Here’s the math:
According to the Federal Government if all provinces were to fully participate in the planned carbon tax Canadian CO₂ emissions might be reduced by 90 mega tonnes by 2022.
What would be the physical impact of the proposed tax on climate?
Global warming would be averted by 0.00015⁰C annually, or 1⁰C per 6500 years
This impact would be identical to the ‘climate change’ one would feel by stepping on a one-inch thick heavy carpet or by moving two houses north in a typical subdivision.
CALCULATIONS AND SOURCE CITATIONS:
The “Estimated impacts of the Federal Carbon Pollution Pricing System” may be found here:
https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-action/pricing-carbon-pollution/estimated-impacts-federal-system.html
The justification for the carbon tax is an estimated reduction in CO₂ emissions of 90 mega tonnes per year in 2022. You will note that the impact on climate is not mentioned.
Peer-reviewed studies claim that each tonne of CO₂ emissions increases global temperature by 0.0000000000017⁰C per year. Let’s apply this factor to the projected emissions reduction:
90,000,000 tonnes / year x 0.0000000000017⁰C / tonne = 0.000153⁰C / year
Stated differently, the impact of the proposed carbon tax on global temperature would be equivalent to one Celsius degree in 6500 years.
https://phys.org/news/2016-01-temperature-co2-emissions.html#jCp
Temperature decreases with altitude. This ‘environmental lapse rate’ is 0.006°C / meter. The increase in altitude to ‘feel’ the same impact as caused by the proposed carbon tax is:
0.000153⁰C / 0.006°C / meter = 0.0255 meters
This is 2.55 centimeters – just over one inch.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Environmental+lapse+rate
A stiff breeze would blow their calculations to hell and gone. The politicians won’t balk, they’re getting paid to allow this crap to happen.
Please Note: LG is that same battery maker of the $1.8B Chevy Bolt recall. I guess S.Korean batteries (made in China) are highly dangerous and toxic.
Buying giant batteries to power cities from a company called Lucky Goldstar? Boy did the Koreans see the Yanks coming or what.
Happy Lucky Goodtime, GI … sucky-sucky …
They just need better emergency cooling system and containment structures.
Who’s insuring these losses? Ohhhhhhh yeahhhhhh … the PG&E Ratepayers (me!) are insuring these losses. Sheesh … my PG&E Bill is already LOADED with special charge-offs that I have to pay.
A class-action suit couldn’t hurt.
YeahWell, “A class-action suit couldn’t hurt.”
It might if it’s too tight around the collar. Superman’s action suit is kinda classy, and he might be upset if you get one to compete against him. I dunno about you, but I wouldn’t want to piss off that dude!
Sorry, I just couldn’t help myself.
See!, I haven’t lost my sense of humor yet, it just got a little warped.
Also, mega-projects like this, and EVs, drive the price of Li-Ion and other new battery tech up, making it harder for consumers to get their hands on them…their most productive role is in the micro-sphere.