Wärtsilä’s new Quantum 2 containerised battery energy storage system (BESS) solution is aimed at meeting “customers’ varying needs,” the company has said.

Energy storage’s incredible versatility and usefulness can’t be fully unleashed without a comprehensive approach to fire safety.

The challenges of explosion prevention – with flammable gases needing to be vented “very rapidly” – in the event of a battery fire have been highlighted at this week’s Energy Storage Summit USA.

A couple of weeks ago the New York Power Authority (NYPA) began trialling an energy storage system using lithium batteries based around start-up Cadenza Innovation’s ’Supercell’ architecture which aims to eliminate the threat posed by thermal runaway. NYPA’s R&D lead Alan Ettlinger and Cadenza Innovation CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud spoke with Energy-Storage.news as the trial got underway.

US energy storage safety expert advisory Energy Storage Response Group (ESRG) was created through a meeting of minds from the battery industry and fire service. Andy Colthorpe speaks with ESRG principal Nick Warner and business manager Ryan Franks on what the industry needs to do to win the trust of firefighters, code officials and other stakeholders including banks and insurers.

An April 2019 fire and subsequent explosion which caused injuries to firefighters and destruction of a grid-scale battery storage system in Arizona likely started with an internal cell defect that caused the “preventable” incident, analysis has found.