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 explosion
Read the companion article: https://modoenergy.com/transmission-podcast/dd2f413e-483e-49bd-845f-9acbccbcc07f?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=dan_sherlock_burke&utm_content=article_page
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 fires
2:42 - Battery fire propagation and site design
4:04 - Moss Landing fire: what actually happened
7:04 - LFP vs NMC battery chemistry explained
9:04 - Why lithium iron phosphate isn't "inherently safe"
13:08 - Using data to catch thermal runaway early
15:53 - EPRI's battery failure incident database
16:27 - How battery fire rates fell 99% since 2018
18:58 - What causes battery fires: the 11% vs 65% split
23:26 - Why most battery fires go unreported
28:01 - Inside thermal runaway, minute by minute
34:44 - Fire suppression and the explosion risk
39:09 - The Liverpool battery fire
41:11 - Rethinking battery fire suppression
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Channel: Modo Energy
Published: 2026-07-07
Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDMs7QQqQxE