Hi We just got an update today on the Victoria big battery fire. The Uh Tesla Mega pack. um it's a 300 megawatt milliwatt 300 megawatt facility uh, in Morable in Victoria and on July 30th. this actually uh, this year it dumb caught alive.

so in less than two months they've already, uh, come to their conclusions. what uh, caused this fire of the Tesla mega packs and um, what measures need to be put in place to you know, stop this happening again and I think they're almost ready to go and they've put those measures in place. They're almost ready to go back online again. So yeah, here's some photos if you remember, it's a big 300 megawatt uh facility here and one of the packs caught on fire.

These are actually um, two packs. So a mega pack is just one of these uh like rows here. They put the like two of them back to back and then uh, space them like that. But essentially one of those is a mega pack and one of them caught on fire.

Uh first I'm not sure which part caught on fire first which you know end it was whatever but of course this one being buttered right up next to it. There was probably no way that this was. This second pack was not going to catch on fire, but it was a fault in the first Uh pack which caused this a fire which then spread to a second one and you can see some uh charring on a third pack over here. But the report only says that they only lost two mega packs.

so I presume that was just like superficial. Um, you know, charring to the outside metal doors on the thing or whatever. So it's all good. They only lost two mega packs thanks to the Uh Cfa, the Country Fire Authority in Uh Victoria.

You can see that they're spraying water. They set up water here to stop the fire actually spreading to, uh, you know, because the prevailing wind was going in this direction like this. So they set up their hoses on this side to try and prevent the fire spreading. So if they were more densely packed and you can see here how the first one's effectively burned out and the second one caught on fire at that point.

but they didn't see the charring up there on that one. but I believe that one survived. So um, yeah, they only lost the two mega packs and because the wind was going in this direction like this, Um, yeah, it was going in the other direction. they might.

it might have. you know, because of the closeness of these, uh, two other packs here, these ones might have caught on fire as well. But uh yeah, the Cfa did very well to stop to control the spread of this fire. Of course, they couldn't put the fire out.

Um, because you can't put lithium ion, uh, battery fires like this out there. Exothermic. Once they catch on fire, it pretty much just got to let them burn out and contain it and stop it from spreading. Pretty much so.

Anyway, let's go over and see if we can find out what actually caused this. So it was. Uh, the investigation was handed over to Energy Safe. Uh, Victoria who's like a government, uh, body who oversees safety in this sort of, you know, energy infrastructure.

I'm not sure what their actual scope is, but it obviously involved this. I was passed over to them. So let's have a read: Cooling system leak led to Victorian Big Battery Fire. Energy Safe Victoria has concluded that the Victorian Big Battery Fire most likely resulted after a cooling system leak caused a short circuit in electrical component in a mega pack.

So it sounds like it was a cooling system within the one mega pack. Um, whether or not that is actually self-contained If anyone knows, please leave it in the comments down below. But I assume it's like each mega pack is like they they manufacture and they ship them and on the back of a truck and they just drop them in. and it contains a self-contained cooling system.

But I don't know whether or not that is like just a recirculating thing or whether it requires Um, you know, external coolant from outside and then it has to be hooked up by system contractors and things like that. I don't know if you've got any details. Leave in the comments down below. The independent Energy Safety Regulator delivered its findings following almost two-month investigation in the late July blaze at the Morable site, Esv conducted extensive investigations at the site while analyzing data from the site owner, Neon.

Yeah, this is not Tesla owned. it's owned by a huge energy. They want energy. I think they mainly do energy are Neon and they're the ones who, uh, purchased the Tesla battery packs and then installed them.

And they're the ones who are renting it out to the Uh Energy uh grid for storage. And you know the energy providers, uh, actually buy um, storage space on that system. It's kind of like it's like energy equivalent of cloud storage. So the analyze data from the site owner Neon as contractors Ugl I don't know who that is and uh, Tesla.

So Tesla's just a contractor in this. They don't actually run the site, they just provide the mega packs and probably you know, technical assistance and all that sort of stuff up. Maybe they have monitoring systems as well, which we'll get into. That seems to be one of the things.

So after extensive inquiries, Esv found a mega pack cooling system leak, caused a short circuit, resulting in overheating that led to a fire in a nearby battery compartment, which consequently damaged two mega packs. So that's interesting. They say it led to a fire in a nearby battery compartment, so that indicates that the short wasn't in like it wasn't one of the cells because uh, these you know they're manufactured in like, um, I think we saw a photo in the previous video. They're manufactured in like trays of cells that they kind of like slot into like a rack kind of thing.

and each one of those is supposed to. There's uh, various standards and requirements for these cells. What You know, if they short circuit, they go exothermic and they, you know, heat up or whatever, they're not supposed to spread to the other cells in the pack. And um, so they they're supposed to be rated for that.

Um, so yeah, it says a fire in a nearby led to a fire in a nearby battery compartment. So the overheating maybe in some other aspect of the mega pack caused the cells to heat up and too far. and they then the cooling system couldn't cool down the pack and then the batteries just went well. We and then it damaged one mega pack.

but then the fire of that mega pack spread to the other pack. Obviously, there were further contributory factors with the mega pack in question being switched off into an offline service mode, resulting in the protection systems being inactive and this is one of the things that they're fixed up. We'll actually read. This is not the report.

This is just like a summary. We'll read the, uh, the short, well, the findings in a minute, which goes in a little bit more detail. but um, yeah. basically one of the problems was that, um, the system could go into like an offline state and then that turns off the protection system.

So yeah, that seems to be a big oopsie. And then another issue was a 24-hour delay in connecting the batteries to the Uh Scada System which is supervisory and control and data acquisition. That's what it stands for Scada. It's just a basically a monitoring system.

That's basically what it is. Also meant that there was no active monitoring of the mega pack alarms because there's a 24-hour delay and we'll there's more detail in the next document on that. So before they can go back online, uh, these are the things that they have to have the owners and operators uh implement as additional safety uh measures. So uh, the first one is mega pack cooling systems are fully pressure tested when installed on site.

So as I said before, like I don't know whether or not it's like completely self-contained or whether or not it requires fluid from outside like on-site uh facility. In that case, it's more of a facility set up kind of thing. But anyway, they want them to do full pressure testing when they can install it on site because moving these things so they manufacture these overseas and they have to be shipped all the way to Australia here halfway around the planet to Uh then be installed. Like just the vibration and shock and everything of transporting these things is? it's probably horrific, right? So yeah, um, that could have.

Who knows. It might have been like a shipping uh issue. Uh, perhaps? or something like that. Um, so yeah.

they want them to fully pressurize, test them when they're installed on site. Um, so apparently they didn't do that. and then Mega Pack cooling systems are inspected for links after testing. So presumably, uh, they didn't do that as well.

They presume. they just trucked them in, hooked them up, and Bob's your uncle. Shorter connection times to the Scada system to help alert Tesla with specific alarms. Yet we'll see this in more detail in a minute.

That's the one that took a 24-hour delay up here. Um, and that. so they didn't get any alarms that this thing was on fire. Um, so yeah.

I not not even sure if the site was manned at the time. Um, that it actually, uh, caught on fire. So yeah, monitoring is important. A new battery module isolation loss alarm has been added.

Um, I presume. Yeah, that goes back to the base, wherever the base. Uh, happens to be in the base. uh, command center.

And so that's a presumably a totally independent battery module isolation alarm. I would presume that would be like a hardware, or at least a firmware modification in the battery. Um, in the Tesla pack itself. Procedure changes.

Yeah, Anyway, Esv satisfied. The site can safely recommence commissioning on the 29th of September. That's tomorrow. As these changes have been made, they've all been made okay.

There you go. But here's an important one which I touched on the previous video. Further work needs to take place to ensure the mega packs are engineered to fully mitigate the risk of fire spread from one unit to another under Victorian conditions. So yeah, like if we're going to buy any more of these, we need to make sure that they're You know it can't spread to another pack and that gets back to um, as we said, like spacing the only the reason the other one, like there's no way you're going to avoid this other one catching on fire.

It's like almost buttered up like there's what is the gap in there like that far. it's just just the heat is going to really affect that. And as I said, if the wind's blowing in that direction, then um, yeah, the other. You know you could have lost maybe four, you know, three or four packs or something like that.

Um, there is large gaps here, so they want them to do further work in that regards. In how they can ensure that they're engineered to fully mitigate the risk of fire spread. I don't know. Are they going to like install some, you know, a brick wall between them or something like that around them? I don't know.

Um. but obviously they're able to maintain the blaze just to this. So obviously like the because this one like heated up over here So but it it wasn't presumably wasn't lost. So you know the gap between them in this direction seems to be adequate.

Um, at least in this. You know we've only got one uh, example here. but I guess if the wind was blowing upwards like that, maybe yeah, these ones would be toast too. Even that gap might not be enough.

But anyway, they want them to do further stuff to make sure that's not possible. So there you go. That's the takeaway for that. Let's now go look uh at the for those who want a little bit more detail, the statement of technical find is not very long.

It's only three pages long. The Victorian Big Battery Experience to Fire that involves two mega packs during commissioning. Once the Cfa had bought the situation under control, it handed control of the site to Energy Safe Victoria and then commenced an investigation in the incident to determine its root causes and what actions should be taken to prevent a reoccurrence. Neon International Aims contractors Ugl and Tesla, who respectively own and operate Vbb site, have cooperated with Esv throughout this investigation methodology.

Two mega packs, each being a shipping container size battery unit, were completely consumed by the fire. The most likely root cause was determined by Tesla's engineering investigation and recreation of events to replicate real data from the incident in order to determine most likely the root cause. The following findings are informed by testing undertaken by Tesla, examination of the scene by Esv and other Victorian agencies, video surveillance fully, and telemetry data from the original incident. So they're heavily relying on Tesla to like recreate uh, this thing.

Um, and you know, model it and re. Maybe they got a real mega pack and they simulated. You know? I'm sure he can do a lot in the software to simulate this kind of uh fault. Obviously, they wouldn't have recreated in a real mega pack because there was almost certainly nothing left of this.

just a, you know, melted molten mess. So yeah, there probably wasn't anything physical, much physical to investigate, so they pretty much had to model this root cause. Most likely root cause of the incident was a leak within the megapack cooling system that caused a short circuit, led to a fire in an electronic component. There you go.

So more specific, it is not a battery. A component caught fire. I'd really love to know what Uh component actually caught fire in there. It could be anything.

It doesn't have to be a Pcb component. It could be you know, like a i don't know, a relay caught fire or a big Scr caught fire. Or you know, like something I don't know could be anything. This resulted in heating that led to a thermal runaway and fire in an adjacent battery compartment within one megapack which spread to an adjacent second mega pack.

So there you go. It's a fire in some component, um in there because these are like massive power. so they're gonna have like big, uh, you know, huge massive relays and and Scr's and other you know, stuff in there to you know, switch power and disconnect and all sorts of stuff. So who knows what component caught on fire, but it was obviously near enough to the adjacent battery compartment.

Um to yeah, the battery is heated up and you don't want to heat up lithium ion batteries too much even though they're engineered to stop. uh, spread once the batteries catch on fire. If your cooling system's then got a leak and it's it's not working um, as actual actually designed, then yeah, you're going to Kamagatsa. Contributory factors: A number of other factors contributed to the incident and destruction of the entire mega pack.

Had these contribution contributory factors not being present, the initial fault would likely have been identified and even manually or automatically contained. so that's interesting. They say you know this fault should not have led to, um, this particular thing if the if these extra factors uh, weren't in play. And here's the one about the Scada system and the 24 hours.

The Super. The Scada system for the mega pack took 24 hours to map the control system and provide map to the control system and provide full data, functionality and oversight to operators. Wow, that's actually a long time. You know this thing was charging during this time and it wasn't Um, it wasn't providing uh, data functionality during that time.

The Mega Pack that caught fire. been in service for 13 hours. Yeah, before being switched into an offline mode when it was no longer required as part of the commissioning process. Okay, so somebody manually switched it.

It was working for 13 hours and then somebody. they switched it into a an offline mode. For some reason we don't know why this this prevented the receipt of alarms at the control facility. Well yeah, that that's a problem.

hence why they're making them basically fix this issue because if it, if it's taken offline, that should not prevent the alarms to go back to the control facility. Yeah, that that is a mistake that certainly would have alerted to them whether or not this would have, uh, stopped it. Um, we don't know. But yeah, that was certainly a contributory factor.

A key lock was operated correctly to switch the Meg pack to an offline service state. Okay, so somebody's got a key lock somewhere and went, eh. we don't need that pack for some reason, which was no longer required for ongoing commissioning. but this course.

So doing that caused the telemetry systems for monitoring the condition of the now out of service mega pack to shut down and so remove visibility of the developing event. Okay, so that means yeah, they weren't able to monitor it. Um, you know they like, probably you know there'd be temperature data being sent back, a whole slew of data being sent back, and they weren't able to monitor uh, presumably like a rise in temperature. Uh.

Which caused this issue. So the battery cooling system to shut down. So putting it in offline state offline service mode, it shuts down the cooling system. Wow.

Um, yeah, that's a problem, but it also switching into offline mode. it turns off the battery protection system as well, including the high voltage controller that could have operated at a pyrotechnic fuse to disconnect the faulty battery unit. Wow, That's interesting, but it's saying that the fault was in the component which then caused heat to the nearby battery pack. So I'm not sure what hitting the pyrotechnic fuse would have done well.

Maybe that would have stopped current from the other batteries and then a dunno. Lessons learned and preventing a reoccurrence. The following actions have been put in place to prevent a recurrence of this incident: Each megapack cooling system is to be fully functionally and pressure testing when installed on site and before it's put into service. Yes, because ultimately that was the cause of this was there was a leak in the cooling system, Whether or not it was leak when it was first installed or whether or not it failed.

Um, I yeah, we we just don't know really. Each mega pack cooling system in its entirety is to be physically inspected for leaks after it has been functionally and pressure tested on site, right? So somebody's got to go around. And you know, Yeah, it's been pressure tested, it's all certified. But we're going to check for leaks anyway.

Now, come to think of it, I can kind of see how a coolant system leak is the most likely thing because a leak from a cooling system, right? It's part. You know. it's got liquid. Whatever that liquid is flowing through, you know, hoses with all sorts of hose clamps on them, and you know it's probably a right.

Quite a complex system within this gigantic mega pack the size of a shipping, uh container. It's probably got tons of connections in there. It only needs to have one of those connections to be dodgy for the coolant to start leaking out, and then you're gonna if it's not a continuously replenished thing. If it's a closed-loop system, it's gonna slowly leak out.

You don't have as much coolant in there, and well, it's not as effective and it's eventually gonna leak it all out. I guess depending on where the uh leak is and then you've got no cooling at all. So yeah, that those sort of all those connections could have been possibly this is just speculation. Um, it could have been, uh, you know, dislodged or something due to shipping vibration shock by going by transporting these halfway around the planet.

Um, that's a thing. I've got experience in shock and vibration in shipping stuff and it's bad enough just on Pcbs and things, let alone all this all this mechanical sort of stuff. Yeah, that's why they're saying they should be physically inspected and physically inspected for leaks after they're installed and then pressure tested. The Scada system has been modified so that now maps in one hour instead of 24 hours and to be verified before power flow is enabled to ensure real-time data is available to operators.

see. Yeah, One of the problems with was was that they were using this for 13 hours. They were putting energy into this pack. They're charging it up from the grid, using it for 13 hours before they then put it into offline mode for some reason, and during that time it was in the first 24-hour period.

So it actually had no monitoring data coming back at all during that charge time. So yeah, so now they're saying not it should do it in an hour, but they shouldn't even use it at all before the monitoring system's in place. and that obviously makes sense. A new battery module isolation loss alarm has been added to the firmware.

Okay, yeah, I mentioned that before. Yeah, because they're going around installing hardware on you on all of them, so they're able to do that in firmware. That's pretty cool. Uh, so hats off to the Tesla designers.

They obviously you know, were able to do that in firmware. Or because the hardware had the ability to do that and they were able to attack it on the firmware? Nice. Uh, this modem? They can even do that remotely. I guess.

Can they upgrade the firmware remotely? Or someone have to go around to each cabinet? and uh, then plug in a cable and update the firmware? I don't know. if you know, leave it in the comments. This modification also automatically removes the battery module from service until the alarm is investigated, right? So that'll just take them into non-service mode. Of course, if you've got an alarm somewhere you want to be taking that pack offline Changes have been made to the procedure for the usage of the key lock for mega packs during commission and operation.

We saw the telemetry system is operational. yeah, that's part of the one we read before. The high voltage controller that operates the pyrotechnic fuse remains in service when the key lock is isolated. Yeah, that was A That was A I think and that was probably a pretty big oversight whether or not that could have stopped the fire.

Dunno. Designers are also working to ensure that mega packs are engineered to fully mitigate the risk of fire propagation from one unit to another under Victorian climatic conditions, with proposed mitigation procedures to be rolled out to a applicable mega packs globally. Um, so yeah, so they're gonna. they're gonna come up with some solution.

Like and but it's like Tesla. As far as I know, Tesla only sell the mega packs. It's up to the installers in each kind of the owners and the operators and installers in each country to determine the physical layout. I mean, this is obviously they're talking about physical layout here, right? That's the only thing they could be talking about here is to prevent the risk of fire propagation.

One to another reason it propagated from one to another is because there were like that much gap between two packs and both of them went up. Um, of course they were too close. so I don't know how they can do that with this facility. Now how they can retrofit it? I mean, you know what, Are you going to put a big brick wall in the gap between there? You probably got enough room for a brick wall, but I don't know.

Um, yeah. so I'm not sure what that deal is. I'm not sure if they can retrofit this existing facility to do that or not, but you know, like. But you could also say that, uh, well.

I'm I'm happy to accept the if there's one pack that catches on fire for whatever reason, you know there's no way this. it will absolutely guarantee this will never happen again. You know Murphy's law. Um, you know things happen.

Um, things fail and you can't get every single uh, contingency. But if one catches on fire, well, we're happy to lose two. You know that could be A. That could be a trade-off that I guess is up to the operators and the owners.

Conclusion: The incident was most likely initiated by a mega pack coolant leak. Uh, they're saying most likely this is the most likely scenario. It's not guaranteed. But yeah, they think this is what happened.

The absence of a number of monitoring and protection systems that would have been available had the initial mega pack not been subsequently switched. Offline service mode allowed the initial fault to go undetected and result in total loss of the two packs. Okay, so the kind of hint hinting here that if they had those monitoring systems, they probably could have you know, gone out. You know, a tech could have gone out there and patched up the coolant system or something if they're going.

Oh, it's over temperature. Um, yeah. I guess someone could have ran out there and actually saw what was going on. but because, uh, they weren't getting any alarms or whatever.

The first thing they knew is the things. The light. Um, so yeah. and once that starts, you're not even going to go near it, let alone be able to stop it.

The effect of mega packs failed safely to split despite total loss. Um, I, I don't. I don't know. I don't understand the statement at all.

How can they have failed safely, but were but one of them when one of them totally caught on fire? How does that fail safely? I don't understand. I don't know. I I don't get that comment at all. Esp has advised Tesla there's no objection to the recommencing of commissioning of the Vbb.

We read that before. Yeah, it's going to happen like tomorrow. Um, because they're happy with everything except I guess the spacing of the packs, the physical spread thing. But that doesn't affect it being put back online.

Really, They've fixed everything else. By the sounds of it, Esv has reminded Tesla of the general duties applying to the owners and operators of complex take reasonable care. I you know, I don't know what they're employing there. I think they just put that in because they have to.

It's just you know. Um, this typical government speak. um, watch Utopia by the way, and a bit of a non-sequitur Watch Utopia I think it's called something else in the Us. I believe it's available in the Us, but it's about a fictional government agency and it's hilarious.

It's like office space kind of thing, but a complete Um series. It's it's It's great if anyone who works in the public service will just think this is a reality tv show, let alone a fictional one. Anyway, it's great and they're asking Tesla to provide final results of the investigation when available into why the fire resulted in the loss of the second mega pack. Well, that's obvious.

Even if Tesla had a say in how they were configured at the site, it was right next to it. Um, and what to do to prevent the circumstances arising. Again, it's this far apart. you saw it in the photos.

There's no way. So I don't know who made the call on that configuration. Just going to look at other Tesla mega pack installations. Look, there are.

yeah. Jewel Jewel. Yep. Yep.

they're all backed. These are the smaller ones. I think. Yeah, this seems to be like a standard Recommended: That's a that's a artist's impression.

That's a standard Recommended. That's Tesla's recommended. Uh. Configuration seems to be what's going on there.

Yeah, there's not much gap between those, is there? Yeah, In fact, they're bolded. They're bolted together on the top. there. They've got that um.

thing. although why the one behind it doesn't have it, that brace holding them together? Um, yeah. That's obviously why the second one caught on fire. I don't think that's just the physical configuration.

There's no way you can stop that when they're that close. I mean this is. you know this is pretty good Separation as you saw there was like child. You know, assuming this one caught on fire.

There was like char into this one over here because the heat just spread and it was just. you know, it had soot and everything else. But um, you know. So this gap in here seems to be, uh, adequate.

But because the wind was blowing basically straight down there like that? um yeah, we just don't know. But these ones seem actually to be, uh, much closer. Look, they butted the Uh four pretty close together. but there you go.

There's another configuration there, so a Mega Britons there's there's a Britain one. They've mounted them on these like metal, uh, frames instead of like concrete. So so it all vary. It does seem to vary.

I think that's part of the uh owner and installer to uh to do that. And you know, here's one which has either that's an older, that's not the uh, the new mega pack thing. that's the smaller one. That one's got more spacing and stuff in there.

So yeah, it does seem to. whereas the uh, morable one um is. Yeah, they are relatively close here, but even that small gap there was enough if the wind was blowing in that in blowing in the right direction, That was enough. Not even.

I don't even think there was a mark on this one next to it. Um, it's amazing what the wind can do there. So yeah, we just got soot on the other ones and so there you go. Yeah, I think that's up to the owners and operators rather than Tesla.

I guess they have recommendations, but it seems like you don't necessarily have to follow them and they're going to see if there's any breaches of the Electrical Safety Act and supporting regulations and enforcement action is warranted This that's either going to do further investigations, not the that's not the Um end of their thing, but basically there it is. Um, it was. They call it system leak and some component electrical type component I guess caught on fire due to the leak outside of the battery pack. so it wasn't a failed cell.

There you go. Interesting, huh? So when so who's uh, responsible for paying for this? I it's within the mega pack. Like if the cooling system's internal I guess. but then shipping and handling.

If somebody goofed that up, like maybe then Tesla's insurance insurer is going to wipe their wipe their hands of it. So yeah, I'm sure the Tesla insurers are battling it out with the knee neon. Is that how you pronounce it? Um, insurers to see like who's responsible for this thing. But yeah, it was a cooling system leak and there were a couple of little oversights on the Uh on the design side of it, but ultimately the cause which which they're fixed.

Uh, by the way. So hats off. Tesla has fixed this in under two. They've investigated this, simulated it, and fixed it in less than two months and it's ready to go back online tomorrow.

So yeah, hats off to the Tesla engineers. I'm sure they'll work in overtime on this one. So there you go. That was interesting.

That is the cause of the big battery fire. Victoria Big battery fire. It wasn't A. It wasn't a cell going exothermic, it was just some other component in there.

Apparently that's their best guess. Um. Anyway, so interesting. If you liked that video, please give it a big thumbs up.

As always, discuss down below. Catch you next time you.