SAN FRANCISCO Up to 1,500 people were evacuated Friday when a fire at the largest battery storage facility in the world smoldered, sending hazardous smoke plumes into the atmosphere. The fledgling battery storage sector was also rocked by the fire.
Fire Chief Joel Mendoza of the North County Fire Protection District of Monterey County stated that although the fire at the Vistra Energy lithium battery plant in Moss Landing produced massive flames and a great deal of smoke on Thursday, it had greatly subsided by Friday. Texas is home to Vistra.
According to Mendoza, there isn’t much, if any, plume coming from the building. According to him, crews are waiting for the fire to extinguish itself rather than battling it. Because lithium-ion batteries burn hot and are difficult to extinguish, it is common to let them burn out.
Although there have been no reports of injuries, locals expressed worry about the release of dangerous gasses into the atmosphere.
It was only the beginning of the fallout from the incident at the battery storage plant located approximately 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of San Francisco.
This is a wake-up call for the industry, not just a fire. At a meeting on Friday morning, Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church stated that a safe battery system is essential if we are to forward with renewable energy.
Battery storage, which has just been utilized extensively in the past few years, is thought to be essential for supplying clean electricity to the grid during periods when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. However, almost all of the batteries are made of lithium, which has a propensity for thermal runaway, which means that it can burn extremely hot and catch fire, releasing harmful gasses.
Oregon is home to a number of the nation’s expanding lithium battery plants.
One of the biggest utilities in the country, Pacific Gas & Electric, purchases energy from Vistra.
On Thursday, January 16, 2025, near Moss Landing, California, smoke and flames from a fire fill the sky. AP
Nicholas Pasculli, a spokesman for Monterey County, said the fire did not spread outside the building. According to a statement from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, evacuation orders for 1,200 to 1,500 individuals were canceled Friday night after authorities determined there was no risk to public health. However, people were told to turn off their air conditioners and close their windows.
It cannot be sugar-coated. Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV, “This is a disaster.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating the facility’s air quality, and Vistra has engaged an air consultant to look for contamination in surrounding areas, according to Brad Watson, senior director of community affairs. According to Watson, Vistra will disclose the findings as soon as they are available.
The director of Monterey County’s Department of Emergency Management, Kelsey Scanlon, told reporters that the fire’s discharge of hydrogen fluoride into the atmosphere is alarming.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, excessive exposure to hydrogen fluoride gas can be fatal and can irritate the mouth, throat, eyes, lungs, and nose.
At an emergency meeting of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors earlier Friday, locals voiced their worries on the quality of the air.
“This is really upsetting,” said Silvia Morales, a resident of Watsonville in Santa Cruz County, “because it doesn’t seem like the fire department had the right fire retardants to minimize this fire and had to actually let it burn, exposing all of the residents.”
According to Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto, no dangerous gasses have been found in the air by air quality monitoring equipment.
According to Watson, the battery factory experienced two overheating incidents in 2021 and 2022 as a result of the batteries being wet. According to him, a third event occurred in 2022 at the nearby PG&E-owned Elkhorn battery factory.
By lowering the demand for electricity to be produced from fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases, lithium batteries stabilize the electrical grid. California was a pioneer in battery storage and now has more than 11 gigawatts of online utility-scale storage, which can provide about half of the state’s main grid’s demand for four hours every day.
Lithium batteries, according to experts, are a safe technology that is crucial for reducing carbon emissions and improving grid dependability. However, if they are broken or overheated, they pose a serious fire risk.
“We do not believe that this incident will significantly change the nationwide trend of increasing grid-scale battery deployment,” stated Timothy Fox, managing director of the nonpartisan energy research firm ClearView Energy Partners.
The cause of this most recent fire was unknown. Everyone at the location was safely evacuated after it was discovered, according to a statement from Vistra. An investigation will start as soon as the fire is extinguished.
The safety of the community and our employees is our first priority, and Vistra is grateful for the ongoing support of our local emergency services, said Jenny Lyon, a Vistra spokesman, in a statement.
According to Jodie Lutkenhaus, a chemical engineering professor at Texas A&M University, safer grid-compatible batteries need to be developed.
According to Lutkenhaus, there are a few ways to lower the risk of fire with lithium batteries, such as adding more fire safety precautions, but adopting better technology is the only effective solution. Scientists are working on water-based and redox flow batteries, although they have not yet reached commercial size.
Although they are extremely stable, lithium iron phosphate batteries still have a small fire risk, making them a viable substitute.
According to Princeton University engineering professor Yiguang Ju, lithium batteries of any kind are intrinsically unsafe and prone to fire once they reach a certain size.
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From Philadelphia, O Malley provided a report.
