Jiangsu Electric Power has completed the development of an intelligent early warning system for energy storage power station fires

On May 6, State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Co., Ltd. successfully completed the development of an intelligent early warning system for fires in energy storage power stations. The successful development of this system will greatly improve the safe operation level of battery energy storage power stations.

It is understood that the current grid-side electrochemical energy storage mainly uses prefabricated cabin-type lithium iron phosphate batteries, which have a relatively high safety factor, but may also burn under extreme conditions such as overcharging, short circuiting, or when the battery itself is of poor quality. The large-scale construction of domestic grid-side energy storage power stations has also brought new challenges to the safe production of power systems.

In 2018, State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power built and put into operation a cluster of lithium iron phosphate battery energy storage power stations in the east of Zhenjiang to support the regional power grid load, with functions such as peak shaving and valley filling, and suppressing tidal fluctuations. In order to master the thermal runaway characteristics of energy storage batteries, State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power proposed a new early warning method and carried out the first domestic grid-side energy storage battery module combustion test. Through a year-long study, it deeply analyzed the thermal runaway process of energy storage batteries, the propagation and spread of combustion, mastered the critical conditions, characteristic parameters, and monitoring methods of thermal runaway of energy storage batteries, and successfully developed an intelligent early warning system for energy storage power station fires based on characteristic gas detection.

After the system is installed in the energy storage battery cabin, it can monitor and determine the concentration of characteristic gases of battery thermal runaway in the cabin in real time. Once the gas is found to exceed the alarm threshold, the battery switch can be immediately cut off through local control to prevent the battery thermal runaway from further spreading, thereby achieving the goal of early warning and timely disposal of fire hazards.

It is reported that the system will soon be deployed and applied in eight grid-side energy storage power stations in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, to help Jiangsu power grid meet peak demand in summer.