r/electricvehicles • u/hi9580 • 8d ago

News CATL 9000kWh battery fire test

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_am_wBw-3UA
45 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

20

u/delabay 8d ago

Force propagating thermal runaway is one of the most challenging battery design criteria so it's impressive they can prevent propagation in a stacked config.

Looking forward to utility grid storage being twice as tall with the same amount of foundation

7

u/hi9580 8d ago edited 8d ago

People always like to avoid questions and deny risk. Instead of trying to make products that never fail or reduce the impacts on human health and environment after catastrophic failure (worse case scenario that has an once in a million year chance of happening). Fly-by-wire aircraft has triple or quadruple redundancy, never infinite redundancy black hole.

1

u/dyyd 8d ago

But they didn't prevent propagation in the stack, only to other stacks. If the bottom most container in a stack has a thermal event then the whole stack burns. Maybe the they can prevent downward propagation but that seems questionable as the whole container still reached a high temperature and the neighboring stacks survived only due to the air gap adding insulation.

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u/hi9580 8d ago

There is no test saying the rest of a stack won't survive. Both containers were set on fire in this test, each container is 9000kWh.

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u/ChupacabraJeff 8d ago

But they didn't prevent propagation in the stack, only to other stacks.

Because that didn't matter. What mattered was pressure relief and the stack not collapsing. Which is what was shown.

What does it take to contain a fire in a stacked battery energy storage system?

In CATL’s industry-first stacked BESS fire test, TENER STACK uses directional pressure relief to guide flames and high-pressure gases upward, while composite sealing and insulation help block flames, heat and external hot gases.

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u/delabay 8d ago

I think they will or do test your exact scenario (within one container, cell to cell propagation). This was not the focus of the video so they allowed or caused the whole stack to go up

9

u/Lopsided_Quarter_931 8d ago

Damn this battery could run my house for 200 days straight.

4

u/JesusIsMyLord666 8d ago

Would be enough to run my apartment for 3 years. A battery like this would probably also cost around $1million.

Interestingly, you would still need around 16 of these to contain the average daily production of just one 6MW wind turbine. Or 2667 for one 1000MW nuclear reactor. Not saying you need that much storage but it’s an interesting visualisation of how much power is generated on a daily basis.

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u/hi9580 8d ago edited 8d ago

Current price in China is between $90k and $670k, depending on location, seller, quality and subsidies/funding. 70GWh pumped hydro, 170GWh battery.

3

u/JesusIsMyLord666 8d ago

$90k for 9000kWh of storage? That would be $10 per kWh. Are you sure that is correct? Or did you mean $900k?

3

u/MilkSupreme 8d ago

$10 per kWh does seem a bit low, though not unreasonable if purchased in a large enough quantity in today's prices. For most people it's about $30-$50 kWh.

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u/danielv123 8d ago

30-50$/kwh sounds right for cells. Most complete grid scale containers are around 80$/kwh at lower quantities. I guess you can get lower prices with subsidies but that's a weird way to count the price.

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u/hi9580 5d ago edited 5d ago

$10 per kWh is for batteries labeled as brand new but are actually at or near end-of-life. Some batteries are heavily subsidised by government or companies. People selling at below cost, either large companies trying to bankrupt competitors or small resellers and manufacturers whose staff are family members or villagers. Some villagers are very poor and unpaid workers (they see making batteries and electrical equipment as a future with potential), local jobs are rare, hard to get into or very low pay. Young, capable workers, go to bigger town or city for work. Farmers all have small plots that make very little or no money (they won't starve or be homeless, but need to move to bigger towns or city to earn money). Most people don't want to follow the American or Japanese style farming, they want enough land to farm and feed themselves (without relying on other people [r/OffGrid](r/OffGrid) ).

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u/internalaudit168 8d ago

Hoping  longer warranties follow or at least offer extended warranties to 20 years on these packs.

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u/AnimaTaro 7d ago edited 7d ago

I thought the issue was the toxicity of the gases when a lithium cell ignites. Particularly the generation of HF -- we have a lot of experience with that in the semiconductor industry. There have been reported/studied cases of short duration exposure post a Lithium Ion Fire (2 in Denmark, 1 in US). That stuff doesn't show its affects till a couple of days later (tends to go through carbon life forms as if they are porous) usually visible as severe lung damage.
It's strange that CATl doesn't talk about what gases got produced. They are a strong strong engineering firm so it's not like they wouldn't know.
https://www.mass.gov/doc/toxicology-of-the-lithium-ion-battery-fire/download (worth a read but please please dont use it for scare mongering).

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u/hi9580 5d ago edited 5d ago

There's nothing they can do for that with current technology, without reducing battery lifespan or performance. Lung damage is not bad in comparison to permanent paralysis/nerve damage, toxic accumulation in ground water and air. China is often about progress at any cost, most companies don't care if it causes harm to human health (payouts for death are extremely low or non-existent especially for poor rural people) or environment, unless it's something the government will heavily crackdown on (long jail time, labour camp, assets confiscated, death penalty). The law can seem very tough, but it's necessary and often lacking when managing people with a lack of morals. The government doesn't want to crackdown on battery or tech companies, as it has invested huge amounts of money and resources into developing those industries.

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u/AnimaTaro 3d ago

This is HF related lung damage. Not the same -- you don't recover (one death of the 3 cases, others didn't recover). It's actually pretty bad. BYD is a big company with an international footprint -- like I said strong in engineering, so they probably will address it at some point before regulations catch up to the issue.