Australia: Tesla’s new giant battery is burning
Giant battery from Tesla in South Australia. (Photo: Hornsdale Power Reserve / Neoen)
207 days after the start of work and shortly before the final commissioning, the new giant battery made from Megapack modules from Tesla in the Australian state of Victoria caught fire.
Just last Wednesday, the energy company Neoen announced the almost complete completion of its new battery system, the Victorian Big Battery, with 300 megawatts of power and 450 megawatt hours of capacity. It should be able to fully supply half a million households with electricity for over an hour.
On Friday, one of the installed Tesla mega packs caught fire – probably as part of final tests. Two of the 13-ton, 15-meter-long and three-meter-high and wide lithium-ion batteries are now burning. However, the fire brigade sees itself well positioned and does not assume that the fire – although it is in the middle of the grid – will spread further. Extinguishing work does not take place. The fire brigade wants to burn down the megapacks in a controlled manner. No cooling measures are taken either. This only unnecessarily prolongs the process, said a spokesman for the fire department on Australian television and estimated the time required to monitor the fire at up to 24 hours.
The fire brigade work with respiratory protection, the local population has been warned of toxic fumes, and the Big Battery premises have been completely cleared. There should be no injuries. Likewise, the incident should not have affected the power supply in Victoria. The Victorian Big Battery was disconnected from the grid immediately after the fire broke out.
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Victorian Big Battery: Second cooperation project with Tesla
The energy company Neoen is again cooperating with Tesla for the Victorian Big Battery. The two companies had already jointly built the Hornsdale Reserve in South Australia in 2017. This is also a megapack installation, although with an original output of 100 megawatts it is significantly smaller than the Victorian Big Battery. The Hornsdale Reserve was for a long time the most powerful battery system in the world and has since been upgraded to almost 200 megawatts.
Various companies in Australia are now working on much larger systems. In the former coal region of the Hunter Valley coal region, for example, a plant with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts is to be built next year and connected to the grid in 2023.
