Accident analysis of Beijing Jimei Dahongmen 25 MWh DC solar-

storage-charging integrated station project

Institute of energy storage and novel electric technology, China Electric

Power Technology Co., Ltd.
April 2021

1. General information of the project

Jimei Dahongmen 25 MWh DC photovoltaic-storage-charging integrated
station project was reported to the Development and Reform Commission
(DRC) of Fengtai district of Beijing city in April 2018. This project was
developed and operated by Beijing Fuweisi Oil & Gas Co., Ltd. The 1st phase
of the project includes a 1.4 MWh roof-based solar photovoltaic energy
system, 94 parking lots equipped with 150 KW single highly powerful DC fast
charging piles. Among the 25 MWh capacity, 12.5 MWh is used to charge
external EV cars (including 4.0 MWh for private vehicles in the south area +
8.5 MWh for public buses in the north area) and 12.5 MWh for indoor
electricity supply.
This project was commercialized in March 2019, which was the biggest
commercial energy storage station for customers in central Beijing city, the
largest scale public charging station, the first MWh-level solar photovoltaic
energy storage-charging station, the first user side new energy DC
incremental distribution network, the largest demonstration project of solar
photovoltaic energy storage-charging. The project layout is shown in Fig. 1.
 Fig. 1 The layout of the 25 MWh solar-storage-charging project

The batteries are provided by Guoxuan High-Tech Co., Ltd (3.2 V 10.5 Ah
lithium iron phosphate square shell). The single cells were connected in
parallel firstly and then in series by 225S18P mode (225 single cells
connected in series to form a string, then 18 strings were connected in
parallel) to construct a battery module with 720 V of voltage and 189 Ah
current. The battery cluster was finally made by connect several battery
modules in parallel. Details can be found in Fig. 2.
 Fig. 2 Battery cluster
Monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels were installed on the rooftop
idle space of Jimei Furnishing plaza to construct the photovoltaic electricity
generation system, as shown in Fig. 3. Charging piles were installed for
electric vehicles, see Fig. 4. The solar storage-charging system was made
by integrating the sub-systems of photovoltaic electricity generation, AI
charging piles and energy storage. For the energy storage system, handheld
firefighting equipment was equipped near the battery clusters for the
emergency treatment of early accidents.

Fig. 3 Photovoltaic electricity generation system

Fig. 4 EV charging piles

In the integrated solar energy storage and charging project, the sub-system
of battery-based energy storage station largely differs from traditional
centralized energy storage system with respect to electrical structures. In
traditional EV charging stations, the output current is AC, which must be
converted to DC and then charge the electric vehicles. Thus, the AC-DC
converts are required. The project considered the feature of battery cascade,
which directly generate DC as the output. Therefore, the AC-DC converts
are removed. Batteries were connected in series to achieve voltage of 750
V, after multi-stage parallel, to deliver power of 150 kW, current of 250 A and
voltage of 750 V for each charging pile. The output KPIs correspond to the
highest values of national standards of charging piles. Due to the absence
of AC-DC converts, the size of the energy storage sub-system is reduced.
However, the requirement of current homogenization of battery clusters and
on-off ability of the DC switch became higher.
2. Report of the accident
At 12:17 pm on 16th April 2021, the Fire Command Center of Beijing received
a report of the fire accident occurred on the Beijng Jimei Dahongmen power
station (located in the south area). 47 fire trucks and 235 fire fighters from 15
local fire brigades were sent to the fire site.
Around 14:15 pm, when the fire fighters were dealing with the fire of the
power station in the south area, a sudden explosion occurred in the power
station in the north area without a warning, leading to the death of 2 fire
fighters, injury of 1 fire fighter and missing of 1 employee of the power
station.

Fig. 5-7 are not translated. Please read the original report.
https://wemp.app/posts/547dac6a-171c-4389-b735-8951c0e8bcd8
 Fig. 8 Aerial photography of the accident scene
It was learnt through preliminary investigation that on-site debugging was
undertaken prior to the accident. At 23:40 pm on 16th April 2021, the naked
fire was extinguished. However, the cooling-down was still in process. The
reasons and property loss were under investigation.
 Fig. 9 The power station after fire fighting
3. Analysis of technical reasons
The sudden explosion of the power station in the north area could be
explained by the safety accident induction mechanism of lithium batteries,
which is the thermal failure of the batteries in the extreme conditions when
they were significantly affected by internal and external sources. The safety
of battery-based energy storage system is complicated because it involves
batteries, battery management systems, cables, system electrical topology,
early warning, monitoring and firefighting systems et al. Due to the limitation
of accidental information, it is hard to determine the fire accident was initiated
by the poor quality of the batteries or the overloading input to the batteries
which exceeds the limitation of the batteries. Several possible reasons are
proposed as follow.
3.1 The quality of batteries
According to the on-site situation, combustion and explosion occurred on the
lithium batteries of the energy storage system, along with heavy smoke. The
reason of lithium batteries’ combustion and explosion is due to the failure of
thermal control inside the batteries, which is triggered by two main reasons:
1. the internal problem of lithium batteries, e. g. the internal short circuit due
to the deficiency of electrode materials, and/or the formation of dendrite
lithium during long-term operation. 2. The external reasons, e. g. the
irreversible exothermic reaction caused by electric and thermal shock.
During the integration of batteries to form the battery clusters, if the selection
of batteries’ model did not meet the safety requirement, the out-of-control
heat is prone to occur due to the low tolerance to the turbulence of
temperature during charging-discharging process. In present, the safety test
basis of lithium batteries for energy storage purpose is the GB/T36276, the
national standard officially started in January 2019. The difference of this
national standard, in comparison with the previous standard of lithium
batteries as vehicle’s power source, is the new technical requirement of heat
management and the associated safety performance. Whether the selected
batteries in the accidental battery clusters meet the GB/T36276 is unknown.
If they did not meet the requirement of GB/T36276, a safety risk is foreseen.
3.2 Electrical topology of energy storage
The electrical topology of the project is DC distribution network structure. The
battery cluster was connected to the high-power charging piles and
photovoltaic system through the DC/DC converts based on a shared DC bus.
The safety risk of this type of electrical topology are:
(1) When the performance of various battery clusters is nonuniform, a
circulation of current can be formed during operation. When the
circulated current is large, overloading occurs on a single battery cluster,
accelerating the aging and degradation of battery clusters.
(2) When short circuit occurs on the DC bus, the short circuit current moves
to battery clusters through the DC bus. This instantaneous short-circuit
high current may lead to a significant temperature increase within the
batteries, leading to a fire as a consequence.
(3) Due to the higher insulation requirements for DC bus, the deficiency of
insulation materials potentially causes an arc spark. Since DC current
has no zero-crossing point, the arc spark is hard to be extinguished.
 Therefore, it is easier for the high temperature arc spark to ignite the
batteries and cables.
(4) DC switches are more complicated and the arc spark within the DC
switches is harder to be extinguished than that of the AC switches. The
switch off time of DC switches is longer and the DC switches are more
expensive. In some projects, expensive DC switches were occasionally
replaced by cheap AC switches. When AC switches were used in DC
systems, these AC switches may not be switched off in case of overload
accident, leading to a safety risk.
(5) The lack of adequate electrical isolation measures for power electronic
equipment in DC distribution. If the grounding work in the DC power
distribution system is not properly handled, electromagnetic circulation
problems can easily cause leakage current when the system is running.
The accumulated heat due to the leakage current in battery cabinets,
cables et al. may cause local high temperatures, leading to potential fire
of the batteries as a safety risk.
(6) View from the scene, the fire accident occurred in the south area first.
The sudden explosion in the north area happened without warning while
fire fighters dealing with the accident in the south area. In this situation,
the reason maybe the shared DC bus in the north and south areas.
When an accident occurred in the south area, the DC bus in the south
area is short-circulated. However, because the DC protection system
failed to detect the short circulate current, the DC protection system did
not take an action. Thus, the batteries in the north area were over-
discharged instantaneously and the current increased, causing the
accident.
3.3 Battery management system
In addition to battery cells, battery energy storage systems also include BMS,
PCS, transformers and related relay protection equipment, communication
equipment and a series of primary and secondary equipment. The
equipment may directly or indirectly cause safety problems in the energy
storage system due to quality defects, irregular installation and
commissioning processes, unreasonable settings, and inadequate insulation.
On 7th March 2017, a fire accident occurred in the lithium battery energy
storage system of a power station in Shanxi province, China. According to
the investigation report, it is determined that the cause of the fire accident of
the energy storage system is the excessive voltage and current caused by
the surge effect during the system recovery and startup process, and it is not
effectively protected by the BMS system. The battery management system
may have a long data collection cycle and an unreasonable threshold setting.
The charging and discharging process exacerbates the risk of battery out of
control.
3.4 Arrangement of cables and wires
Judging from the public information, the cables of this project were laid by
pipe bridges, which were close to the safety distance of the battery cabinet.
If the above circuit is short-circulated, the cable will burn or explode, which
will easily cause a chain reaction, causing the battery to catch fire or
explosion.
The wiring harness in the battery module is also the source of the accident.
If all the wiring harnesses are not fireproofed, or the collection wiring harness
and the communication wiring harness are not clearly distinguished, it is easy
to cause interference between the wiring harnesses and cause inaccurate
battery management system information. When an accident occurs, if it is
not handled in time, the wiring harness is not fireproof, and it is easy to
become a flammable source.
3.5 Power station fire protection design
After the lithium-ion battery fails thermally, on the one hand, it will have a
strong thermal shock on the surrounding batteries. On the other hand, the
thermal out of control of the battery will generate a large amount of alkane
combustible gas. Under the effects of external electrical shock caused by
external load short-circuit, thermal shock after battery thermal failure, etc., if
the energy storage system lacks effective protective measures, it may cause
the expansion of battery accidents. If the energy storage device is arranged
indoors, when the flammable gas reaches a certain concentration, it will
explode in case of a naked fire, and more serious situation is the chain
explosion accident.
According to the media description, the project has two substations, one
main and one attached. The grid-connected end passed through the cable
after the DC bus on the low voltage side. When short circulation occurred,
fire fighters have already been on-site. Because there is no isolation of the
battery energy storage system, explosion occurred just when fire fighters
arrived (at 13:30 pm it is the discharging time). It is inferred from this that the
fire protection design of the power station is insufficient. The fire protection
design on site has no firewall design, lack of isolation and energy absorption
facilities, and does not play an effective protective role in the event of an
explosion of the energy storage batteries.
3.6 Fire monitoring, alarming and extinguishing system of power
station and fire water
According to the site situation, an explosion occurred in the north area.
According to this phenomenon, it may be due to the high temperature
generated by the fire in the south area. The battery pressure relief valve of
the energy storage system in the north area was opened to release the
flammable gas generated by the decomposition of the electrolyte, leading to
a deflagration. There may be a lack of flammable gas detection devices or
failure of the detection devices, failing to effectively detect flammable gases,
and failing to make timely warnings, resulting in an explosion. The large fire
spread of the energy storage power station indicates that the on-site
firefighting system failed to control the fire in the first time, and the hand-held
fire extinguishing device installed on the site cannot functionate, which does
not meet the fire extinguishing needs of the lithium-ion battery energy
storage power stations.
Judging from the accident pictures, when firefighters used firefighting water
to extinguish the fire of the energy storage system in the south area, an
explosion suddenly occurred in the north area. Due to the close distance
between the south and north areas, the firefighting water may touch the
energy storage system in the north area when spraying the south area. Since
the energy storage system is a high voltage charged body, water spraying
may cause a short circuit of the charged body and the cables and induce fire
or extended electrical accident. Therefore, in the early stage of the energy
storage system fire, when a large number of energy storage batteries have
not been affected, the use of water as fire extinguishing medium still requires
careful consideration.
3.7 Meteorological environmental factors
It can be seen from the investigation and analysis repot on fire accidents of
energy storage power stations in South Korea that environmental factors are
the possible causes of fires in energy storage systems. On April 15th, Beijing
issued a yellow warning for gale, bule warning for sand dust, and orange
warning for forest fires. The meteorological environment of strong wind and
sand dust may cause dust accumulation in the energy storage system. On
the one hand, it is not conducive to the heat dissipation of the energy storage
system and increase the operating temperature of the system. On the other
hand, the presence of sand and dust will adversely affect the insulation of
the system. Insulation failure can easily cause electrical breakdown of
electrical equipment and local high temperature, which will induce thermal
failure of energy storage batteries.
3.8 Personnel on-site operation and management system
According to media reports, when the energy storage power station accident
occurred, there were workers on site to debug the energy storage system.
The energy storage system is a high voltage, high energy live system. There
are many cables and wires at the construction site and the commissioning
site. If the operation is incorrect or the site is not handled properly, safety
problems are prone to occur. From the battery body, integration, engineering
design, construction, operation and maintenance, et al., there are currently
relevant standards. If they are not implemented in accordance with the
standards, problems such as irregular field operations, lack of supervision,
and insufficient understanding of operators will occur, which may lead to
serious safety consequences.
4. Suggestions of future work
(1) To strengthen the safe operation management and enhance the
technical supervision system of energy storage power station in
operation. Clarify management responsibilities and responsible entities.
In view of the hidden dangers of different types of energy storage
accidents, designate failure emergency plans and fire protection
measures to ensure the safety of personnel and property.
(2) To strengthen the application of energy storage technology standards,
build a quality management system for energy storage construction,
operation and maintenance, implement relevant standard requirements
into all aspects of energy storage technology supervision, and ensure
the safety and reliability of energy storage equipment connected to the
grid.
(3) To accelerate the construction of failure and fire simulation platforms of
large-capacity energy storage systems, carry out research on the fire
evolution mechanism and preventive control of energy storage systems,
build fire hazard level and protection evaluation system of the energy
storage systems, verify and improve the adaptation of the energy
storage safety system to different environment.
(4) To strengthen safety technology research on energy storage, study
energy storage system safety technology in their life cycle application,
study energy storage system safety status online perception and
diagnosis technology, study energy storage power station safety early
warning, flame retardant, heat insulation, fire fighting technology, etc.
Take practical and effective measures to accelerate the popularization
and application of new technological achievements.
Location of Beijing Jimei Furnishings Dahongmen Charging Station