Electrical energy storage (EES) systems - Part 5-3. Safety requirements for electrochemical based EES systems considering initially non-anticipated modifications, partial replacement, changing application, relocation and loading reused battery.
Owners of energy storage need to be sure that they can deploy systems safely. Over a recent 18-month period ending in early 2020, over two dozen large-scale battery energy storage sites around the world had experienced failures that resulted in destructive fires. In total, more than 180 MWh were involved in the fires.
From a safety perspective, consideration should be given to the nature of surrounding sites and the potential for increased risk if hazards such as fire were to propagate from one site to the other (particularly where those sites also have an elevated fire risk). Co-locating energy storage with energy generation is becoming increasingly common.
In addition to NYSERDA’s BESS Guidebook, ESA issued the U.S. Energy Storage Operational Safety Guidelines in December 2019 to provide the BESS industry with a guide to current codes and standards applicable to BESS and provide additional guidelines to plan for and mitigate potential operational hazards.
This roadmap provides necessary information to support owners, opera-tors, and developers of energy storage in proactively designing, building, operating, and maintaining these systems to minimize fire risk and ensure the safety of the public, operators, and environment.
NYSERDA published the Battery Energy Storage System Guidebook, most-recently updated in December 2020, which contains information and step-by-step instructions to support local governments in New York in managing the development of residential, commercial, and utility-scale BESS in their communities.