Days before President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office and took actions to stall the transition to clean energy, a disaster unfolded on the other side of the country that may have an outsize effect on the pace of the transition.
A fire broke out last Thursday at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California, one of the largest battery energy storage systems in the world. The fire raged through the weekend, forcing local officials to evacuate nearby homes and close roads.
Battery storage is an essential part of the transition away from fossil fuels. It works in tandem with solar and wind power to provide electricity during periods when the renewable resources aren’t available. But lithium-ion batteries, the most common technology used in storage systems, are flammable. And if they catch fire, it can be difficult to extinguish.
Last week’s fire is the latest and largest of several at the Moss Landing site in recent years, and I expect that it will become the main example opponents of carbon-free electricity use to try to stop battery development in other places.
The fire risk can be reduced by using safer battery types like sodium ion and LiFePO4.
Or depending on the location and water availability, a two tier reservoir system that pumps water to a higher reservoir to store the energy and let’s the water flow back to the lower reservoir to create electricity.
Different risks of course (if there’s a damn failure there’s a flood), but there are more energy storage options than just batteries.
Pumped hydro is much better than battery storage, but it’s only possible if you have the correct geography for it.