Lithium Ion Battery Home Fire

[peakbagger]

Lithium ion battery causes house fire in Sanbornton Saturday | Local News | laconiadailysun.com

I see all the posts on all the folks building home battery setups where the batteries are obviously in a house and cringe. On commercial jobs whenever we looked at large Lithium batteries we needed to have them outdoors with plenty of space around them and a nearby fire hydrant.

[Will792]

I do not think water should be used for LIIo battery fires. Water interacts with Li and produces oxygen. Unfortunately many fire departments do not know how to deal with this this type of fires and by using water make a problem worse.

I personally have Tesla PowerWalls in my basement and tried to reduce combustibility around batteries. Large LiIo batteries do have some risks but it is sufficiently managed by having partial isolation of individual elements inside batteries, temperature probes, cooling liquid and electronic monitoring of charging process.

Commercial installations are substantially larger than residential batteries so it makes senses that spacing and placement requirements are different.

My personal opinion that NG or propane line to the house has higher risk profile than LIIo storage battery.

[solardreamer]

I personally have Tesla PowerWalls in my basement and tried to reduce combustibility around batteries. Large LiIo batteries do have some risks but it is sufficiently managed by having partial isolation of individual elements inside batteries, temperature probes, cooling liquid and electronic monitoring of charging process.

Is your PW covered by home insurance? If so, what's the associated premium?

Personally, I would never put a large Li-ion battery inside my house unattended. LIFePo4 would be OK. Growing number of jurisdictions no longer allow indoor installation of home batteries.

My personal opinion that NG or propane line to the house has higher risk profile than LIIo storage battery.

Why?

[Srrndhound]

Lithium ion battery causes house fire in Sanbornton Saturday | Local News | laconiadailysun.com

Some additional info on this specific case:

>>The system had been installed about three years ago. It consisted of three used lithium-ion battery packs taken from Chevy Volt cars. Because the batteries were bought used, “we don’t have any idea how old they were.” The contractor who installed the system is no longer available. <<
Link to Concord Monitor story

Info from Chevy about their battery:

The LG Chem cell uses a manganese-based cathode chemistry with additives to improve battery life under high-temperature conditions. Numerous measures have been taken to help prevent the safety issues – namely short circuiting and overheating – that have occurred in lithium-ion batteries used in consumer electronics. LG Chem’s exclusive Safety Reinforced Separator consists of semi-permeable membranes separating the electrodes in the cells, which are mechanically and thermally superior to commonly used separators.

It sounds like these batteries were specifically designed to avoid spontaneous combustion, yet they still failed. Would a bumpy life in a vehicle play any role?

[peakbagger]

Standard FD practice is just hose down the perimeter to keep surrounding buildings from lighting up and then putting a deluge nozzle up high to flood the battery for up to 3 days. I have no doubt that insurance companies will start factoring in home battery installations once the payouts start climbing. I wonder if at some point I will need to pay a surcharge on my homeowners for the 16KWh battery in my hybrid Rav 4?

I saw on the news that the storage yard in SW Florida where they store the salt water flooded Tesla's that tend to burst into flames, had a pit full of water so that they can push the burning car into the pool and let it sit underwater for a couple of days until its "safe".

It is not just Lithium batteries, when I was living in rural VT and working with a bunch of off gridders and former off gridders, many had similar sad stories of fires tied to their off grid systems. Many admitted in retrospect that the reason for the fires was shortcuts they had taken. Most ended up figuring out a way of getting back on the grid

[Calsun]

On September 20 this year a Tesla lithium-ion megabank caught fire at the Moss Landing facility and Highway 1 was closed completely due to concerns abbout hazardous vapors being produced. Had this been inside a house envelope it could have been deadly for anyone inside. In July there was a similar incident in Australia.

I would want a powerbank installed outside my house in a cinder block enclosure on a concrete pad. Installing on an interior wall in a basement or in a garage puts the house and everyone inside at risk. The cost of the pad and the enclosure would be part of the cost of the powerbank.

With my standby generator the codes require it so be a minimum distance from any basement vents to prevent the CO exhaust from entering a living space and to have a battery powered CO monitor inside the house. These requirements are the result of fatalities that resulted from CO poisoning of people in their homes. The cost to install a concrete pad and run a natural gas to this location and electrical conduit back to my house was part of the cost of adding the new generator. I would take the same approach with an emphasis on safety if adding a bank of lithium-ion batteries at my house.

Battery backup systems have traditionally used lead acid batteries and so no risk of a fire. The use of lithium-ion batteries in a powerbank is still new technology and still prone to failure and fires. In time the building codes will be changed but there is a 3 year or more lag in code revisions to deal with new issues.

[Will792]

My personal opinion that NG or propane line to the house has higher risk profile than LIIo storage battery.

Why?

because of ignitability difference between LiIo batteries and NG/LP. I fly medium size RC helicopters (3 feet rotor diameter) for about 12 years. Batteries for my helicopters are the same LIIo but without the benefit of thermal probes, liquid coolant and metal segregation between cells. It is extremely difficult to ignite these batteries, even with a lot of effort. Contrast it with trying to ignite gasoline, NG or LP.

Large size LIIo batteries are designed to be used together with thermal monitoring, cooling and BMS. Taking battery pack from old or crashed Volt car and using it for electricity storage in the house is not exactly trivial engineering exercise. I would not be surprised if this house had a battery pack without active cooling loop. In Volt (I happen to own one) there is a separate cooling loop for battery pack with a pump and thermal monitors.

[Calsun]

Why is critcal thinking absent so much of the time. A RC model aircraft with a 5000mAh (or 37 Watts) cannot be equated to a megabank that is 182.5 MW (megawatt) whici is 182,000,000 Watts. See the difference?

NG is also lighter than air and outside the building envelope. LP is quite different as it is heavier than air and so can pool and then be ignited which is why it is so dangerous when used as a fuel on boats.

There are safety valves that cut off the fuel if there is no flame in a furnace but there is nothing similar with a power bank and no one is regulating them for safety. No federal agency reviews these for safety as federal management ended with Reagan more than 40 years ago. It is very much a buyer beware situation in the USA. The UL in the USA receives payment from companies that want its approval so there is not incentive for their engineers to not approve a product. Often only the power cord or transformer is tested and approved and if a company uses this parts at the outside of the device it can be listed as UL Approved.

For my part I believe in not taking chances where the outcome could be fatal for myself or others. I lost a house as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake so I know what it means to lose everything and have to start over from scratch.

There have been EV's that have caught fire and damaged or destroyed buildings but at least one has the option of parking it outside the garage. A power bank attached to a wall of a house is a completely different matter and a roll of the dice with ones home and the lives of those inside. I cannot see the logic of creating this fire hazard when there are alternatives.

A friend has a battery bank at his house in Fiji but it is comprised of large lead acid batteries connected in series and they are all outside his house. If a FLAT battery has a problem with a cell it will simply reduce the voltage for the bank. FLAT batteries do not suffer from thermal runaway as with lithium batteries and it only takes the failure of one power cell to start a fire that takes out the entire bank. This has happened with cell phone batteries that have resulted in the loss of cars from the fires started and similar fires with laptop batteries as well. Read the warnings on even these tiny battery packs about charging them and consider the risk of having to grab a cell phone and tossing it outside (unless it is inside an aircraft which is why they are not allowed in checked baggage) as compared to a power bank attached to the wall of a house.

A power bank does not make sense economically if one does the math. The payback period is many years. I would also spend an additional $2,000 to $3,000 to install a powerbank outdoors and isolated from the house so if it does catch fire the fire cannot spread to my house.

[Will792]

Why is critcal thinking absent so much of the time. A RC model aircraft with a 5000mAh (or 37 Watts) cannot be equated to a megabank that is 182.5 MW (megawatt) whici is 182,000,000 Watts. See the difference?

NG is also lighter than air and outside the building envelope. LP is quite different as it is heavier than air and so can pool and then be ignited which is why it is so dangerous when used as a fuel on boats.

There are safety valves that cut off the fuel if there is no flame in a furnace but there is nothing similar with a power bank and no one is regulating them for safety. No federal agency reviews these for safety as federal management ended with Reagan more than 40 years ago. It is very much a buyer beware situation in the USA. The UL in the USA receives payment from companies that want its approval so there is not incentive for their engineers to not approve a product. Often only the power cord or transformer is tested and approved and if a company uses this parts at the outside of the device it can be listed as UL Approved.

For my part I believe in not taking chances where the outcome could be fatal for myself or others. I lost a house as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake so I know what it means to lose everything and have to start over from scratch.

There have been EV's that have caught fire and damaged or destroyed buildings but at least one has the option of parking it outside the garage. A power bank attached to a wall of a house is a completely different matter and a roll of the dice with ones home and the lives of those inside. I cannot see the logic of creating this fire hazard when there are alternatives.

A friend has a battery bank at his house in Fiji but it is comprised of large lead acid batteries connected in series and they are all outside his house. If a FLAT battery has a problem with a cell it will simply reduce the voltage for the bank. FLAT batteries do not suffer from thermal runaway as with lithium batteries and it only takes the failure of one power cell to start a fire that takes out the entire bank. This has happened with cell phone batteries that have resulted in the loss of cars from the fires started and similar fires with laptop batteries as well. Read the warnings on even these tiny battery packs about charging them and consider the risk of having to grab a cell phone and tossing it outside (unless it is inside an aircraft which is why they are not allowed in checked baggage) as compared to a power bank attached to the wall of a house.

A power bank does not make sense economically if one does the math. The payback period is many years. I would also spend an additional $2,000 to $3,000 to install a powerbank outdoors and isolated from the house so if it does catch fire the fire cannot spread to my house.

NG/LP lines into the house are inside building envelope. Enlightening read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrim...gas_explosions

Large LIIo batteries are assembled from small cells. Tesla batteries use 18650 and 2170. Even though quantity does affect characteristic of a battery the building block is the main factor.

In my case payback for 3 PW batteries is around 4-5 years. Cost was around 26K before 30% federal tax credit. I get around 3.5K for use of my batteries during summer season.

[solardreamer]

because of ignitability difference between LiIo batteries and NG/LP. I fly medium size RC helicopters (3 feet rotor diameter) for about 12 years. Batteries for my helicopters are the same LIIo but without the benefit of thermal probes, liquid coolant and metal segregation between cells. It is extremely difficult to ignite these batteries, even with a lot of effort. Contrast it with trying to ignite gasoline, NG or LP.

Large size LIIo batteries are designed to be used together with thermal monitoring, cooling and BMS. Taking battery pack from old or crashed Volt car and using it for electricity storage in the house is not exactly trivial engineering exercise. I would not be surprised if this house had a battery pack without active cooling loop. In Volt (I happen to own one) there is a separate cooling loop for battery pack with a pump and thermal monitors.

Ignitability is an odd way to compare li-ion battery and NG/LP. NG/LP are intended to be very ignitable for practical use while li-ion batteries are not. Regardless of how ignitable thermal runaway is really the main issue with li-ion batteries. RC batteries are tiny like laptop batteries so not really comparable to large permanently installed li-ion batteries. Thermal monitoring helps but li-ion is still an inherently risky chemistry. Chevy Bolt has lots of built-in protection but Chevy still explicitly warned owners to park outside away from their homes in the most recent battery fire risk recall.

[soby]

I have an LG Chem RESU10H in my basement. I'll let you guys know when my house burns down.

[SunEagle]

I have an LG Chem RESU10H in my basement. I'll let you guys know when my house burns down.

Well some people that have EV's never think about the batteries going up in flames but they do. I guess it all comes down to the chance of something happening. So hopefully your battery does not get too hot and smokes.

[soby]

Well some people that have EV's never think about the batteries going up in flames but they do. I guess it all comes down to the chance of something happening. So hopefully your battery does not get too hot and smokes.

I have a VW ID.4 and the battery management is supremely conservative. I only charge it at Electrify America since it's free for 3 years and I routinely charge to only 80%. I charge to 90% on occasion when I'll be going on a long drive soon after.

The thought of repurposing an EV battery as a home backup battery is terrifying. Don't get me wrong: I'm a mechanical engineer and I love to tinker but this task is not trivial and the risk is just too high. You don't ever see someone repurpose an internal combustion engine from a car and jerry rig it to an electric motor to make their own backup generator. It's a complicated mechanical/electrical engineering challenge. Similarly, The only thing keeping these batteries from bursting into flames is the management software, sensors and cooling systems. Even my tiny CyberPower UPS has cooling fans that come on when it goes into battery backup mode. If any battery is not properly configured with appropriate safeguards in place, it's a huge fire risk. There is so much engineering that goes into charging/discharging these batteries and no one should be DIYing it. Our town electrical inspector was very interested in the battery when we had solar installed and his main concern was UL listing. He would have never allowed a repurposed EV battery even if some electrician was stupid enough to agree to wire it in.

Even with proper management software, these batteries can still catch fire. My advice is don't leave your batteries charged at 100%. That seems to be what gets most people in trouble. My home battery has a backup reserve of 35%-75% depending on the time of year and only gets charged to 100% if there is a utility demand event that same day.

[Calsun]

It is currently not legal in California to install a powerwall inside a house whether in the basement (the worst place possible) or on the wall of the garage. They must be outside the building envelope. This does demonstrate why the NEC is needed to keep people safe.

[SunEagle]

It is currently not legal in California to install a powerwall inside a house whether in the basement (the worst place possible) or on the wall of the garage. They must be outside the building envelope. This does demonstrate why the NEC is needed to keep people safe.

Sounds more like politics and control of people that need power to me.