Daily Hampshire Gazette

By John Pepi

The June 23 guest column by Joe Curtatone of the Alliance for Climate Transition spoke clearly of the role and significance of battery energy storage systems (BESS) if Massachusetts is to green the grid with renewable but intermittent energy sources such as solar and wind. Mr. Curtatone also spoke of the advances in battery safety management which government and industry have put in place – much of these encoded in recent National Fire Protection Association regulations.

In his June 30 rebuttal of Curtatone, Michael DeChiara understandably raises a local concern about the availability of adequate water sources with which to control a possible BESS thermal runaway or fire. Yet, if a town does not have a public water system (with hydrants) and must rely on either the 500-to-1,000-gallon capacity of a firetruck or the ability to pump from local fire pond, is that town any more equipped to fight a house fire which can require 3,000 to 8,000 gallons of water to suppress?

Still, neither writer provides much in the way of actual statistics about the size and scope of the BESS industry, its safety record, specific risks posed and how these compare to other environmental and health risks we face on a regular basis.

• The American Clean Power Association reports that “between 2017 and 2022, U.S. energy storage deployment increased by more than 18 times – from 645 megawatt hours to 12,191 MWh – while safety events over the same period increased by a much smaller number, from two to 12 fire incidents worldwide.”

• The Mass Fire Incident Reporting System’s new lithium-ion battery fire reporting form over its first six months logged 51 fires (vs. 15,000-17,000 total annual fires between 2015 and 2024) believed to have been initiated by or involving lithium-ion batteries. None was attributed to battery energy storage system facilities. Thirty-six fires were attributed to laptops, cellphones, power tools, e-bikes, scooters and the like. The cause of the remaining 15 was unknown.

Yet by the end of 2024, according to the Mass. Production Tracking System (Mass. CEC), there were 4,600 battery energy storage systems operating in Massachusetts and, of these, 290 were large stand-alone battery installations similar to one that had been proposed for Wendell.

• Nick Petrakis, former assistant deputy director of the New York City Fire Department’s Bureau of Fire Prevention Sustainability Unit and BESS safety expert, provided the following response to a question from a resident of the town of Tewksbury regarding whether BESS fires can burn for 14 days:

“Systems of the scale proposed here (125 MW) are subject to much shorter events. As we have stated, most battery fires in systems of this design, if they reach a fully involved state, take two to eight hours to consume themselves entirely.”

• A March 2025 review of 35 incidents of battery storage fires (over the last 15 years) prepared by the Fire and Risk Alliance LLC for the American Clean Power Association, concluded that “post-incident monitoring at battery fires in California and New York showed no detectable hazardous concentrations of toxic chemicals like hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen cyanide.” As reported in Utility Dive: The alliance cited environmental studies finding “that airborne emissions are largely confined to the immediate vicinity of the fire, with rapid dissipation and concentration reduction in open-air scenarios.”

• Regarding the two BESS facility fires in New York in 2023 noted by DeChiara, a New York state working group reported preliminarily on Dec. 23, 2023, that “Based on available analyses of air quality, soil, or water data collected in the days following the incidents, the Working Group concluded that there were no reported injuries, and no harmful levels of toxins detected.”

• An analysis of BESS fire frequency and environmental hazards, “Putting BESS Fires in Everyday Context,” July 29, 2024, by The Camelot Energy Group, states that “Over the past two years, there have been 10 reported failures. This implies an annual failure rate of around 0.3%. To put this into perspective, this failure rate is comparable to the rate of regular house fires across the U.S., which is about 0.3% based on 374,300 reported residential fires by the U.S. Fire Administration and 130 million households, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“BESS are largely made from steel, plastic, copper, and aluminum. These components are also commonly found in industry and home settings. Pollutants from a BESS fire often include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, organic hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene from plastic, and hydrofluoric acid gas. These chemicals released as gases are potentially harmful to the environment and surrounding personnel. However, they are not unique to BESS fires. Everyday objects in homes and offices, such as chairs and desks, printers, computers, and air-conditioning refrigerants, can release similar pollutants in a fire.”

John Pepi lives in Easthampton.