Lithium Battery Fire?

[AA3JY]

Any one personally experience a lithium battery fire aboard?

Battery fire safety marine : the rising risk of Lithium batteries - LithiumSafe

[markcouz]

No personal experience, but just to clarify are you referring to Li-Ion or LiFePO4?

Li-Ion is pretty unstable and can easily burst in to flame if not carefully controlled, there have been reports of boat fires caused by Li-Ion in hand tools and other appliances.

I have not heard of any fires caused by LiFePO4.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by AA3JY

Any one personally experience a lithium battery fire aboard?

Battery fire safety marine : the rising risk of Lithium batteries - LithiumSafe

That link is just marketing hype conflating a lot of different things to make it seem like they have a solution to a non problem.


Prime example - they conflate one fire where seawater got into one type of lithium battery in electric surfboards with 55 fires on superyatchts with a range of causes.


They are also conflating LiFePo4 which are commonly used as FLA replacements on boats with a number of different, more problematic Lithium Ion technologies.

[markcouz]

I have read the link (after my initial response) and it clearly refers to Lithium Ion several times.

I would not use Lithium Ion on my boat other than in small tools, and even then some form of "safe box" is a pretty good idea, and don't mess around with the factory supplied charger unless you really know what you are doing.

LiFePO4 on the other hand is a safe technology when correctly installed, just as safe as Lead Acid in my opinion which can also catch fire in extreme circumstances.

[SamH]

Destructive tests of Winston LiFePO4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9xZf4p8PkQ

[StuM]

Originally Posted by markcouz

I have read the link (after my initial response) and it clearly refers to Lithium Ion several times.

I would not use Lithium Ion on my boat other than in small tools, and even then some form of "safe box" is a pretty good idea, and don't mess around with the factory supplied charger unless you really know what you are doing.

LiFePO4 on the other hand is a safe technology when correctly installed, just as safe as Lead Acid in my opinion which can also catch fire in extreme circumstances.

LiFePO4 IS a Lithium Ion battery


It is one of several Lithium Ion chemistries.

[Frode]

Originally Posted by StuM

LiFePO4 IS a Lithium Ion battery


It is one of several Lithium Ion chemistries.

You beat me to it!

For those who desire to educate themselves, here's a helpful link to an explanation of the various lithium ion types, over at Battery University

[markcouz]

I stand corrected on the terminology, they are all lithium ion in that they involve the movement of lithium ions during charge discharge.

However I stand fast on separating the discussion between lithium-ion and lithium IRON (or lithium ferrous) as their characteristics are vastly different.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by markcouz

I stand corrected on the terminology, they are all lithium ion in that they involve the movement of lithium ions during charge discharge.

However I stand fast on separating the discussion between lithium-ion and lithium IRON (or lithium ferrous) as their characteristics are vastly different.

Yes, but the marketting blurb linked to in the first post uses the term "lithium ion" in the the first paragraph when they are clearly talking about LiFePO4 which is the only lithium ion technology being used in the marine market to replace lead acid.

"Due to the significant weight saving they offer, the marine market is moving towards the use of lithium ion batteries. Compared to the traditionally used lead acid batteries, the weight saving is roughly 70%. Other advantages of lithium ion batteries compared to lead acid, are the higher storage capacity (4 times higher), longer lifetime and near-zero maintenance potential."

They then went on to discuss the safety issues of other Lithium Ion technologies without differentiating.
"An increasing use of Lithium ion batteries leads to an increased risk for fire."

It's classic FUD based marketing which apparently raised concerns for the OP and prompted this thread.

[donradcliffe]

For all of you who think that LifePo4 batteries can't catch on fire, the highway next to the Moss Landing Tesla Megapack facility was closed all day yesterday due to a fire in one of the Megapacks.

[zurk]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

For all of you who think that LifePo4 batteries can't catch on fire, the highway next to the Moss Landing Tesla Megapack facility was closed all day yesterday due to a fire in one of the Megapacks.

they can catch on fire but the temperature at which they do is very high > 270C before they do so. Puncturing or mishandling does not lead to a fire.

[Frode]

Please provide a link documenting that this Megapack used LiFePO4 cells.

[SV Tom Crean]

Originally Posted by donradcliffe

For all of you who think that LifePo4 batteries can't catch on fire, the highway next to the Moss Landing Tesla Megapack facility was closed all day yesterday due to a fire in one of the Megapacks.

Megapacks ARE NOT LifePo4!

[donradcliffe]

Show me a link documenting that the brand new Moss Landing Tesla installation is not LifePo4. Note the first link is more than a year old.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/tes...gawall/600315/

https://www.ksbw.com/article/tesla-m...april/41298690

[HeywoodJ]

Tesla makes an announcement about the switch of "industrial ESS systems" (Megapack, Megapack 2, Megapack 2 XL) to LFP about once a year during some investment call. They are, however, very, very cagey about what is actually in any specific Megapack.

As the owner/operator of a couple of dozen of the things, with more on the way, I can tell you that all they will give us is a list of 5 different Li-Ion chemistries (NCA, NMC, LFP, NMO, LiCoO2) that "may be included" in the Megapack "or a mixture of these compounds."

Unless you are intimately involved in a specific project it is nearly impossible to know what chemistry(ies) of Li-Ion are in a specific Megapack (or any other Tesla ESS for that matter).