New technology which can help prevent flammable gas build-up in lithium-ion battery storage systems is being made available for “low-cost, non-exclusive licensing” by the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).
Safely managing the use of lithium-ion batteries in energy storage systems (ESS) should be priority number one for the industry. In this exclusive Guest Blog, Johnson Controls’ industry relations fellow Alan Elder, with over four decades of experience in the field of gaseous fire suppression systems and Derek Sandahl, product manager for the company’s engineered fire suppression products, talk about the best ways to achieve prevention of fire incidents stemming from thermal runaway in lithium cells.
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.
The energy storage industry should be well prepared to deal with failure in lithium-ion battery systems so that thermal runaway in a single battery cell never becomes a fire or explosion.
Re-examining older and potentially hazardous battery energy storage systems should be an “essential” tool in fire prevention, according to a panel of industry leaders.
LG Energy Solution, formerly known as LG Chem, is offering free replacements to customers for some of its battery energy storage systems sold in Australia due to potential defects that could cause overheating.
Tom Bensen, Nick Warner, Ryan Franks and Michael Bowes from energy storage and fire safety expert group Energy Safety Response Group (formerly Energy Storage Response Group) discuss some of the most important aspects of creating a safe battery storage industry.
