Episode Details

How dangerous are battery storage fires, really? Despite the headlines, grid-scale battery fire failure rates have fallen 99% since 2018 - from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour to under 0.1. Even as global deployment scaled into the tens of gigawatt hours. Most people still picture a whole site going up in flames. The engineering tells a very different story. Dan Sherlock-Burke, Director of Asset Management at Gore Street Capital, joins Ed Porter for a technical look at how battery fire safety actually works - from the Moss Landing fire that shaped public perception, to the data that can flag a failing module weeks before it fails. He explains what really happens minute-by-minute when a cell enters thermal runaway, why most BESS fires trace back to operations rather than faulty cells, and why fire suppression isn't always the safeguard it appears to be.They cover:- Battery fire propagation: why "let it burn" is increasingly viable, and how modern container design has made fires spreading across a site vanishingly rare- BESS fire statistics: how EPRI's failure incident database shows a fall from around 4 incidents per gigawatt hour in 2018 to under 0.1 today, a 99% reduction- What causes battery fires: why only ~11% start with a faulty cell, while ~65% trace back to operations and integration- LFP vs NMC battery chemistry: lower combustion temperatures, no self-supplied oxygen, and why lithium iron phosphate still isn't "inherently safe"- Battery fire suppression: the contrarian case for why the wrong system can turn a fire into an explosionAsk Ko, Modo Energy's AI analyst, about battery storage safety and fire risk: Get started now.Read the companion article: You can watch or listen to new episodes every Tuesday. Transmission is a Modo Energy production. Your host is Ed Porter - Director EMEA & APAC at Modo Energy.0:00 - What everyone gets wrong about battery fires2:42 - Battery fire propagation and site design4:04 - Moss Landing fire: what actually happened7:04 - LFP vs NMC battery chemistry explained9:04 - Why lithium iron phosphate isn't "inherently safe"13:08 - Using data to catch thermal runaway early15:53 - EPRI's battery failure incident database16:27 - How battery fire rates fell 99% since 201818:58 - What causes battery fires: the 11% vs 65% split23:26 - Why most battery fires go unreported28:01 - Inside thermal runaway, minute by minute34:44 - Fire suppression and the explosion risk39:09 - The Liverpool battery fire41:11 - Rethinking battery fire suppression