Australian Tesla battery fire Took Four Days To Put Out
The fire in a large battery using Tesla kit in Australia is out – four days after it started.
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) in the state of Victoria wrote that the fire was declared under control at 1505 AEST on Monday, August 2. The blaze fired up on Friday, July 30.
The fire burned all weekend, and at 0930 AEST on the Monday, the CFA said the blaze “has subsided significantly but is not yet under control.”
Crews struggled to contain the blaze because water reacts with lithium-ion batteries to produce fire.
The CFA has confirmed that the blaze took root in a Megapack – Tesla’s shipping-container-sized batteries that can store 3 MWh of power. The project using the Megapack – 210 of them, to be precise, is called “The Big Battery” and will have capacity of 300 MegaWatt hours once repaired.
The cause of the fire remains unknown, but investigations have commenced. CFA officials said the fire is the first known such incident to afflict a Megapack.
The site is still being monitored, as two adjacent Megapacks were damaged by heat.
See more here: theregister.com
PSI editors note: a 300mwh battery can supply 300 megawatts of electricity, equating to approximately 195,000 houses, for ONE HOUR.
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Howdy
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“CFA officials said the fire is the first known such incident to afflict a Megapack.”
But since the cells are Teslas’, you can draw conclusions about the future by looking at the cars. It doesn’t bode well.
Maybe the cell production isn’t quite as refined as It should be and one or a few are not up to snuff.
“PSI editors note: a 300mwh battery can supply 300 megawatts of electricity, equating to approximately 195,000 houses, for ONE HOUR.”
Note is insufficient. Please state whether this statement is for power at peak, off-peak, or the grid is just running along somewhere between the two. Otherwise, It is meaningless and misleading.
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Howdy
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“a 300mwh battery can supply 300 megawatts of electricity”
Incorrect. “300mwh” is 300 milliwatthours, It should be a capital M.
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David O'Neill
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Hello PSI, according to an industry website this battery array has a capacity of 450 MWh, capable of producing 300 MW. I believe it’s really meant to supply 250 MW of peaking capability. This battery array was still under construction with little or no charge in the battery cells that caught fire. This would have been much more vigorous had it been operational. It would also have been dangerous for attending fire officers to approach using the tactic of keeping neighboring containers cool. Consider an incident in Beijing ( https://ctif.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/Accidental%20analysis%20%281%29.pdf ). Firemen were killed. Would PSI consider researching the amounts and types of corrosive and toxic substances produced if the whole complex goes on fire, even if that is not considered likely?
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