With demand rising for lithium-ion battery-based energy storage systems, new recommendations have been released for their protection from fire.
Lithium-ion battery-based energy storage systems (ESS) are in increasing demand for supplying energy to buildings and power grids.
However, they are also under scrutiny after a number of recent fires and explosions. It has become clear that lithium-ion batteries are vulnerable to thermal runaway, leading to a venting of flammable gases and subsequent combustion, and creating new fire protection challenges.
To increase awareness of what can be done to improve safety around this technology, mutual insurance company FM Global has publicly released first-of-its-kind research and recommendations. These are based on small to large-scale fire tests recently conducted on ESS sized for commercial applications, such as manufacturing, office buildings, power generation and utility use.
