Large-scale energy storage system: safety and risk assessment

Abstract The International Renewable Energy Agency predicts that with current national policies, targets and energy plans, global renewable energy shares are expected to reach 36% and 3400 GWh of stationary energy storage by 2050. However, IRENA Energy Transformation Scenario forecasts that these targets should be at 61% and 9000 GWh to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and limit the global temperature rise within the twenty-first century to under 2 °C. Despite widely known hazards and safety design of grid-scale battery energy storage systems, there is a lack of established risk management schemes and models as compared to the chemical, aviation, nuclear and the petroleum industry. Incidents of battery storage facility fires and explosions are reported every year since 2018, resulting in human injuries, and millions of US dollars in loss of asset and operation. Traditional risk assessment practices such as ETA, FTA, FMEA, HAZOP and STPA are becoming inadequate for accident prevention and mitigation of complex energy power systems. This work describes an improved risk assessment approach for analyzing safety designs in the battery energy storage system incorporated in large-scale solar to improve accident prevention and mitigation, via incorporating probabilistic event tree and systems theoretic analysis. The causal factors and mitigation measures are presented. The risk assessment framework presented is expected to benefit the Energy Commission and Sustainable Energy Development Authority, and Department of Standards in determining safety engineering guidelines and protocols for future large-scale renewable energy projects. Stakeholders and Utility companies will benefit from improved safety and reliability by avoiding high-cost asset damages and downtimes due to accident events.