What a major battery fire means for the future of energy storage

Some residents in the area have reported health issues that they claim are related to the fire, and some environmental tests revealed pollutants in the water and ground near where the fire burned. One group has filed a lawsuit against the company that owns the site.

In the wake of high-profile fires like Moss Landing, there are very understandable concerns about battery safety. At the same time, as more wind, solar power, and other variable electricity sources come online, large energy storage installations will be even more crucial for the grid. 

Let’s catch up on what happened in this fire, what the lingering concerns are, and what comes next for the energy storage industry.

The Moss Landing fire was spotted in the afternoon on January 16, according to local news reports. It started small but quickly spread to a huge chunk of batteries at the plant. Over 1,000 residents were evacuated, nearby roads were closed, and a wider emergency alert warned those nearby to stay indoors.

The fire hit the oldest group of batteries installed at Moss Landing, a 300-megawatt array that came online in 2020. Additional installations bring the total capacity at the site to about 750 megawatts, meaning it can deliver as much energy to the grid as a standard coal-fired power plant for a few hours at a time.

According to a statement that site owner Vistra Energy gave to the New York Times, most of the batteries inside the affected building (the one that houses the 300MW array) burned. However, the company doesn’t have an exact tally, because crews are still prohibited from going inside to do a visual inspection.

This isn’t the first time that batteries at Moss Landing have caught fire—there have been several incidents at the plant since it opened. However, this event was “much more significant” than previous fires, says Dustin Mulvaney, a professor of environmental studies at San Jose State University, who’s studied the plant.

Residents are worried about the potential consequences.The US Environmental Protection Agency monitored the nearby air for hydrogen fluoride, a dangerous gas that can be produced in lithium-ion battery fires, and didn’t detect levels higher than California’s standards. But some early tests detected elevated levels of metals including cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese in soil around the plant. Tests also detected metals in local drinking water, though at levels considered to be safe.