Update 9 September 2024: The fire was “out and cold” by 1am on Friday, 6 September, around 13 hours after it was reported at 12:09pm Thursday, according to a joint statement from SDG&E and the Escondido Fired Department. Evacuation orders were lifted at noon the following day.
The fire was contained to one BESS unit of the 24 at the site. A statement issued the previous day to media including Energy-Storage.news had estimated that it could take up to 48 hours to burn out.
There were no injuries. Air quality had been monitored from the start of the incident by the fire department, policy department, San Diego Hazardous Materials division, county Health Department and SDG&E and remained safe, the statement read.
Local news outlet NBC 7 San Diego reported that the project in question is the 30MW/120MWh project at the utility’s Escondido Northeast Yard and connected to its Escondido substation. At the time of its inauguration in late December 2017 it was claimed as the largest lithium-ion BESS project in the world by technology provider AES.
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Mandatory evacuation orders were issued by local authorities in Escondido, California, after a fire broke out at a battery energy storage system (BESS) facility.
The City of Escondido issued the orders yesterday (5 September) in a Civic Alert, citing an active fire incident at the BESS project, located at the Northeast Operations Yard of California investor-owned utility (IOU) San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).
City authorities said notifications had been sent to those in area roughly 400 metres by 600 metres surrounding the blaze on Enterprise Street, as shown in the map above. A shelter-in-place instruction was issued for a slightly wider area surrounding the site.
Escondido Fire Department crews attended the scene along with San Diego County Hazmat teams. Hazmat team attendance is mandatory for lithium-ion battery fire incidents.
Early local news reporting showed the fire apparently isolated to one container, and according to the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper’s site, firefighters responded to an alarm and reports of smoke shortly before 12:10pm local time.
Escondido Fire Division Chief Tyler Batson told reporters that water was being sprayed on surrounding units, but that the burning container was being left to burn. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Batson noted that introducing water to the batteries on fire could make the problem worse and ultimately not put the fire out, which is in line with current best practices on lithium battery fires.
Firefighters estimated that it could take up to 48 hours for the container to burn out completely.
Energy-Storage.news has contacted utility SDG&E for further information and comment. This site has some knowledge of battery storage facilities in the area, but it would be wrong to offer up early speculation as to the details of the affected project, pending confirmation from SDG&E or other sources.
The incident does however come not long after a fire in May at LS Power’s Gateway energy storage facility in nearby Otay Mesa, which burned for nearly two weeks. In July, San Diego County voted to introduce new standards for BESS siting in the region following the Otay Mesa fire and another at a large-scale project in the county, but stopped short of introducing a development moratorium that had also been considered.
