SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A hearth on the world’s largest battery storage plant in Northern California smoldered Friday after sending plumes of poisonous smoke into the environment, resulting in the evacuation of as much as 1,500 individuals. The blaze additionally shook up the younger battery storage business.
The fireplace on the Vistra Vitality lithium battery plant in Moss Touchdown generated big flames and important quantities of smoke Thursday however had diminished considerably by Friday, Fireplace Chief Joel Mendoza of the North County Fireplace Safety District of Monterey County stated. Vistra is predicated in Texas.
“There’s very little, if any, of a plume emitting from that building,” Mendoza stated. Crews aren’t participating with the fireplace and are ready for it to burn out, he stated. Letting lithium ion battery fires burn out is just not uncommon as a result of they burn very popular and are exhausting to place out.
No accidents have been reported however residents raised considerations about hazardous gases being launched into the air.
The fallout from the fireplace on the battery storage facility about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of San Francisco was simply starting.
“This is more than a fire, this a wake-up call for the industry. If we’re going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy, we need to have a safe battery system in place,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church stated at a Friday morning briefing.
Battery storage is taken into account essential for feeding clear electrical energy onto the grid when the solar is just not shining or the wind is just not blowing, and it has been utilized in important quantities solely within the final couple of years. However the batteries are almost all lithium, which tends towards “thermal runaway,” that means it may well catch hearth and burn very popular, releasing poisonous gases.
Vistra sells power to Pacific Fuel & Electrical, one of many nation’s largest utilities.
The blaze didn’t unfold past the ability, based on Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli. Evacuation orders for from 1,200 to 1,500 individuals remained in place as of Friday and residents have been suggested to shut their home windows and switch off their air-con.
“There’s no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster,” Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church advised KSBW-TV.
Brad Watson, Vistra’s senior director of neighborhood affairs, stated the Environmental Safety Company is testing air high quality on the facility and that the corporate has employed an air marketing consultant to test for air pollution in close by communities. Vistra will share the outcomes when they’re obtainable, Watson stated.
Kelsey Scanlon, director of Monterey County’s Division of Emergency Administration, advised reporters that the discharge of hydrogen fluoride into the environment from the blaze is a trigger for concern.
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention says hydrogen fluoride fuel can irritate the eyes, mouth, throat, lungs and nostril, and that an excessive amount of publicity to the fuel might be lethal.
Residents expressed considerations about air high quality throughout an emergency assembly of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors earlier Friday.
“It doesn’t appear that the fire department had the appropriate fire retardants to minimize this fire and have to resort to actually letting it burn, exposing all of the residents, including Watsonville in Santa Cruz County, and this is extremely disturbing,” resident Silvia Morales stated.
Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto stated air high quality monitoring techniques had not detected any hazardous gases within the air. She stated the county was awaiting the arrival of a extra superior monitoring system Friday afternoon earlier than lifting the evacuation order.
Watson stated two “overheating events” occurred on the battery plant in 2021 and 2022 as a result of the batteries obtained moist. A 3rd incident occurred in 2022 within the neighboring Elkhorn battery plant that’s owned by PG&E, he stated.
Lithium batteries make the facility grid extra steady and cut back the necessity for power to be generated from fossil fuels, which launch planet-warming gases. California was an early adopter of battery storage and leads the nation with greater than 11 gigawatts of utility-scale storage on-line, which might meet almost half of the demand on the state’s essential grid for 4 hours per day.
Consultants say lithium batteries are a secure know-how which can be important for decreasing carbon emissions and making grids extra dependable. However they’re a major hearth danger if they’re broken or overheat.
“We are not convinced that this incident could materially shift the national trend of growing grid scale battery deployment,” stated Timothy Fox, managing director of ClearView Vitality Companions, a non-partisan power analysis agency.
It was unclear what prompted this newest hearth. Vistra stated in an announcement that after it was detected, everybody on the web site was evacuated safely. After the fireplace is out, an investigation will start.
“Our top priority is the safety of the community and our personnel, and Vistra deeply appreciates the continued assistance of our local emergency responders,” Jenny Lyon, a spokesperson for Vistra, stated in an announcement.
Jodie Lutkenhaus, professor of chemical engineering at Texas A&M College, stated safer batteries should be discovered that can be utilized on the grid.
Some enhancements, akin to extra hearth prevention measures, might be made to cut back hearth dangers with lithium batteries, Lutkenhaus stated, “but the only way to really address the problem is to use a safer technology.” Water-based and redox move batteries are being developed by scientists however haven’t but scaled commercially.
Lithium iron phosphate batteries are a attainable different as a result of they’re extremely steady, however they nonetheless carry some hearth danger.
It doesn’t matter what sort of lithium battery you utilize, “if you attain a sure dimension, it’s inherently very harmful and simple to catch hearth,” stated Yiguang Ju, engineering professor at Princeton College.
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O’Malley reported from Philadelphia.
