Safety considerations are growing as New York state invests in different renewable energies after a battery storage system in Ulster County caught fire but was quickly extinguished.
Such fires are not uncommon but can be devastating if not handled promptly.
Paul Rogers, a retired firefighter and cofounder of the Energy Safety Response Group, which helps develop fire safety systems in battery storage, said a system’s electrolyte can cause explosions when heated.
“When that electrolyte heats up, like any liquid, it starts to vaporize, like when water heats up and vaporizes into steam,” Rogers explained. “In this situation, it vaporizes into a flammable gas.”
Regulations require buildings to have ways to extract flammable gas and prevent explosions or fires. Experts are working to improve the systems by limiting how fires can spread.
Rogers noted the fires he has studied often show outside forces are to blame. He pointed out analyzing examples of system failure help educate battery storage system experts and firefighters, adding some systems are now designed to burn themselves out.
“Because the stored energy that’s there, if you allow it to burn, it will dissipate that energy, which just makes it easier for any type of clean up,” Rogers outlined. “The fire department may actually stand by, and they use the hose line on the adjoining systems if they feel the heat is transferring from one battery cabinet to the next.”
He emphasized some companies are testing their battery energy storage systems by exposing them to catastrophic failure, which involves setting the system on fire to see if the heat transfers to nearby battery cabinets. Rogers feels it is responsible since it tests how these systems hold up in the most intense situations.
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Edwin is a reporter and producer in North Tonawanda, New York. He’s previously reported for the Niagara Gazette and the Ithaca Times. Edwin got an early start in radio interning for WBFO-88.7FM, NPR’s Buffalo affiliate. In 2018, he graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a B.A. in Journalism, and in 2022, graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in Communications.