The first burn test took place in June, with a PowerTitan 1.0 liquid-cooled battery energy storage system (BESS), the second, more recent, test involved a PowerTitan 2.0 liquid-cooled BESS.
The second test, combusting 20 MWh (the first test combusted 10 MWh) utilised an investment of approximately $4.23 million – being the world’s largest and longest burn test. The two burn tests were conducted within six months of each other, aiming to underscore Sungrow’s commitment to technological innovation and relentless pursuit of product quality and safety of both assets and personnel, upholding the safety baseline for the energy storage industry and establishing a new benchmark for safety through rigorous and extreme testing.
The 20 MWh burn test replicated a real-world power plant fire scenario, completed under the oversight of DNV (Det Norske Veritas) experts and over 100 clients, and delivered results exceeding expectations. There was no fire propagation during the thermal runaway incident. In contrast to conventional industry burn tests, this test was a significant upgrade in terms of combustion duration, testing conditions, and safety standards.
The test addressed two challenges:
Challenge 1 involved withstanding over 25 hours of combustion, 3 to 6 times longer than industry-standard combustion tests of 4 to 8 hours. Within this time, the container structure of the thermal runaway unit remained intact and the system could still be safely hoisted for removal. The fire did not spread beyond the unit, demonstrating the PowerTitan 2.0’s advanced explosion venting, flame retardancy, and impact resistance capabilities.
Challenge 2 involved enduring temperatures high enough to melt steel, thereby verifying thermal runaway containment. This was conducted in order to simulate extreme operating conditions. Four fully-charged energy storage units were arrayed, with containers A and B only 15 centimetres apart, the absolute minimum distance permitted in the industry (most power plant containers are spaced 3 metres apart).
Despite the flames from container A reaching 1,385°C – high enough to melt steel – the fire did not spread to the neighbouring container B, which maintained a safe temperature of 40°C, thus validating the PowerTitan 2.0’s fire insulation ability, even when the units are placed in extremely close quarters.
In another phase of the test, all firefighting systems for the containers were shut down, leaving the units unprotected and significantly increasing the safety risks. Despite this, all four storage container doors on the PowerTitan 2.0 remained intact and not burned through, thus the fire was effectively contained within the container and damage was limited.
This demonstrated the BESS’s ability to autonomously respond to extreme fire situations, highlighting the robust passive fire protection design that minimises risk.
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