Safety

Notable Large Facility Fires Overview Date/Location

Facility/Size

Key Details

Jan 1618 Monterey County, CA, USA

Moss Landing 300 MW/1200 MWh

Major fire from a 2020 installation that led to evacuation, environmental cleanup, and decommissioning. See following slide for further details.

Feb 1920 Essex, UK

Statera Thurrock 300 MW/600 MWh

Fire in a single containerized battery while site was under construction.(Source)

Jul 14 Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Molie Quantum Gigafactory Cell Factory

Fire in testing facility while batteries were undergoing initial charging protocol. (Source)

Aug 3031 Monterey County, CA, USA

California Flats Solar 240 MWh

Four Tesla megapacks ignited at a solar facility. Packs were allowed to burn and fire was contained. (Source)

Sep 2324 Boulder City, NV, USA

Townsite Solar 360 Mwh

Two Tesla megapacks ignited at a solar facility. Packs were allowed to burn and fire was contained. (Source)

Oct 18 Munmorah, NSW, Australia

Waratah Super Battery 850 MW/1680 MWh

Catastrophic transformer failure right before final testing. Decreased capacity to 350 MW. Delayed full deployment until 2026. (Source)

Dec 1922 Warwick, NY,USA

Warwick BESS 36 MWh + 17.9 MWh systems

Fire at single containerized battery. Similar 2023 fire at the site identified water intrusion as root cause. (Source)

As BESS/EV deployment continues to grow, safety continues to be an on the front of minds as large scale thermal events can have big consequences such as release of toxic compounds into the environment and communities as well as downtime of key energy infrastructure. A BESS specific failure database can be found here.

Extracted from the PDF; charts and images may read imperfectly.