Here's What Tesla Learned From Last Year's Megapack Fire In Australia & More News Here

Last 12 months’s Tesla Megapack battery fireplace at Victoria Big Battery in Australia was a studying second for Tesla and Neoen. The fireplace occurred in July when a Tesla Megapack was being examined. The fireplace unfold to a different battery as effectively and the 2 Megapacks had been destroyed. The fireplace lasted for six hours and in accordance with Energy Storage News, this was a “safe failure.”

An investigation into the hearth was initiated a mere few days later and was not too long ago made public. Experts at Fisher Engineering and the Energy Safety Response Group (SERB) wrote the technical report, stating that the hearth was brought on by a liquid coolant leak. This triggered the arcing inside the Megapack’s battery modules.

The report acknowledged:

“The origin of the hearth was MP-1 and the most definitely root reason for the hearth was a leak inside the liquid cooling system of MP-1 inflicting arcing within the energy electronics of the Megapack’s battery modules.

“This resulted in heating of the battery module’s lithium-ion cells that led to a propagating thermal runaway occasion and the hearth.

“Other possible fire causes were considered during the fire cause investigation; however, the above sequence events was the only fire cause scenario that fits all the evidence collected and analyzed to date.”

Teslarati identified that the Megapack that began the hearth had been manually disconnected from a number of monitoring, management, and information assortment methods because it was being examined on the time. Another issue that contributed to the unfold of the hearth was wind pace.

The article additionally famous that Tesla carried out a number of procedural, firmware, and {hardware} mitigations to keep away from related incidents from taking place sooner or later, which embody improved coolant system inspections throughout Megapack meeting.

Tesla additionally included further alarms to the coolant system’s telemetry information to determine and reply to potential coolant leaks. Further, Tesla has put in newly designed, thermally insulated metal vent shields inside the thermal roof of all Megapacks.

5 Lessons Learned From The Fire & Tesla’s Actions

The report detailed a number of classes discovered from the Victoria Big Battery (VBB) fireplace. According to the report:

“The VBB fire exposed a number of unlikely factors that, when combined, contributed to the fire initiation as well as its propagation to a neighboring unit. This collection of factors had never before been encountered during previous Megapack installations, operation, and/or regulatory product testing.”

Those 5 classes are:

Lessons Learned Related To Commissioning Procedures.

Limited supervision and monitoring of telemetry information in the course of the first 24 hours of commissioning and using the keylock change throughout commissioning and testing.

The report mentioned that these two elements prevented the MP-1 from transmitting telemetry information reminiscent of inside temperatures and fault alarms to Tesla’s management facility. These elements positioned crucial electrical fault security units such because the pyro-disconnect in a state of restricted performance and diminished the Megapack’s skill to actively monitor and interrupt electrical fault situations previous to them escalating into a fireplace occasion.

Tesla’s Action.

Since this hearth, Tesla modified its commissioning procedures to scale back the telemetry setup connection time for brand new Megapacks from 24 hours to 1 hour and to keep away from using the Megapack’s keylock change except the unit is actively being serviced.

Lessons Learned Related To Electrical Fault Protection Devices.

There are three classes discovered associated to this part. Coolant leak alarms, the pyro disconnect being unable to interrupt fault currents when the Megapack is off by way of the keylock change, and the pyro disconnect probably being disabled on account of an influence provide misplaced to the circuit that actuates it.

These elements prevented the pyro disconnect of MP-1 from actively monitoring and interrupting {the electrical} fault situations earlier than they escalated into a fireplace occasion, the report acknowledged.

Tesla’s Action.

Tesla carried out a number of firmware mitigations that maintain all electrical security safety units energetic whatever the keylock change place or system state whereas additionally actively monitoring and controlling the pyro disconnect’s energy provide circuit.

In addition to this, Tesla added extra alarms that can higher determine and reply both manually or routinely to coolant leaks.

The report famous that despite the fact that this explicit fireplace was initiated by a coolant leak, surprising failure of different inside parts of the Megapack might create related injury to the battery modules. Tesla’s new firmware mitigations handle the injury from a coolant leak whereas additionally permitting the Megapack to raised determine, reply, contained, and isolate points inside the battery modules brought on by failures of different inside parts in the event that they occur sooner or later.

Lessons Learned Related To Fire Propagation.

The classes discovered listed below are the numerous position exterior, and environmental situations reminiscent of wind can have on a Megapack fireplace. And additionally the identification of a weak point within the thermal roof design allowed for Megapack-to-Megapack fireplace propagation.

These led to direct flame impingement on the plastic overpressure vents that seal the battery bay from the thermal roof, in accordance with the report.

“With a direct path for flames and hot gases to enter into the battery bays, the cells within the battery modules of MP-2 failed and became involved in the fire.”

Tesla’s Action

Tesla devised {hardware} mitigation to guard the overpressure vents. Tesla’s examined this and the mitigations will shield the vents from direct flame impingement or sizzling gasoline intrusion with the set up of recent thermally insulated metal vent shields.

These are positioned on high of the overpressure vents and are actually normal on all new Megapack installations.

The metal vent shields can simply be put in on present Megapacks within the discipline. The report famous that the vent shields are nearing the manufacturing stage and Tesla plans to retrofit them to applicant Megapack websites quickly.

Lessons Learned Related To Megapack Spacing.

The classes right here replicate that no adjustments are wanted to the set up practices of the Megapack with the vent protect mitigation in place. An evaluation of the telemetry information inside the MP-2 in the course of the fireplace confirmed that the Megapack’s thermal insulation is ready to present vital thermal safety within the occasion of a fireplace inside an adjoining Megapack put in solely six inches away.

The report added that the interior cell temperatures of MP-2 elevated by 1.8°F from 104°F to 105.8°F earlier than communications had been misplaced to the unit at 11:57 AM, which is presumed to be because of the fireplace itself. This was two hours into the hearth occasion.

The report added that fireplace propagation was triggered by the weak point within the thermal roof and never because of the warmth switch by way of the 6-inch hole between the Megapacks. The vent protect mitigation addresses the weak point and has been validated by way of unit-level fireplace testing, which incorporates exams involving the ignition of the Megapacks.

The exams confirmed that the overpressure vents is not going to ignite even when the thermal roof is totally concerned in a fireplace. The exams additionally confirmed that the battery modules stay comparatively unaffected with inside cell temperatures rising lower than 1 diploma Celsius.

Lessons Learned Related To Emergency Response.

These are a number of classes discovered right here.

1. Effective pre-incident planning shouldn’t be solely invaluable however can cut back the probability of accidents.

2. Coordination with subject material consultants (SMEs) both on-site or remotely gives crucial experience and system info for emergency responders to attract upon.

3. The effectiveness of making use of water on to adjoining Megapacks appears to have restricted advantages despite the fact that water software to different electrical tools with much less fireplace safety constructed into their designs (suppose transformers) will be helpful at defending that tools.

4. The fireplace safety design strategy of the Megapack has benefits over different battery vitality storage methods (BESS)  designs when it comes to security for emergency responders.

5. The report famous that the Environmental Protection Agency mentioned there was good air high quality two hours after the hearth which reveals that there wasn’t any long-lasting air high quality considerations that occurred from the hearth.

6. Water samples confirmed that the probability of the hearth having a fabric influence on firefighting was minimal.

7. Prior group engagement in the course of the mission planning levels is invaluable. It enabled Neoen to rapidly replace the local people whereas addressing instant questions and considerations.

8. Face-t0-face engagement with the local people as early as potential is crucial when fireplace occasions occur.

9. The report famous that an govt stakeholder steering committee from the important thing organizations concerned within the emergency response will help make sure the timeliness, effectivity, ease of coordination, and thoroughness of any public communications.

10. The remaining lesson discovered is that efficient coordination between stakeholders on the website allowed for the fast and thorough handover course of after the hearth. It additionally allowed for the swift and protected decommissioning of the broken items and the positioning’s quick return to service.

You can learn the complete report right here.

 

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