Co-Authored by Kevin Hernandez & Luke Martin.
As utilities race to meet ambitious decarbonization and reliability goals, battery energy storage systems have become a cornerstone of the transition to a modern grid. But with this rapid deployment comes a parallel imperative: planning to ensure energy storage safety before a crisis occurs.
In recent years, fires involving lithium-ion battery storage systems in California, New York, and Arizona have underscored the risks posed by thermal runaway events, toxic gas releases, and other events. The 2019 McMicken explosion in Arizona, a spate of incidents in New York, and most recently the Moss Landing fire in California, have revealed not just technical gaps but lessons for utilities in how to effectively respond when incidents unfold.
Yet many utilities still lack comprehensive corporate energy storage safety programs.
The High Stakes of Inaction
Whether a utility has a single battery storage system or a fleet of storage assets, developing a company-wide safety program for energy storage is no longer optional—it’s mission-critical. Without a plan, utilities can be caught unprepared by an incident, and the results can be devastating: injury or loss of life, uncoordinated emergency response, prolonged outages, regulatory non-compliance, litigation, and reputational damage.
Moreover, increasing regulatory expectations—such as those laid out in 2023 by the New York State Fire Safety Working Group and more recently by the California Public Utilities Commission—highlight the importance of integrating safety throughout the system life cycle. Although, incidents may be rare, the high-profile nature of fires at energy storage facilities has demonstrated the need for well-defined safety plans.
Core components of an effective energy storage safety program should consider:
· Program Governance – Securing executive sponsorship needed to align storage safety across organizations and drive accountability
· Stakeholder Engagement – Proactively engaging with key stakeholders such as first responders, customers and community, regulators, and permitting and siting authorities
· Operations and Response – Incorporating storage safety into standard operating procedures for system monitoring and control, incident reporting, and response coordination
· Risk Management – Holistically mitigating risk from system design to vendor/supplier relationships and operational, system, and environmental risk
Waiting for a safety event to catalyze change is a high-risk bet. The utility sector’s credibility—and the public’s trust in energy infrastructure—depends on taking (and demonstrating) measures to prevent the next headline-grabbing battery fire.
A proactive safety program delivers measurable benefits:
Effective Emergency Response: A plan ensures that first responders and system operators work from the same playbook, knowing how to isolate, extinguish, and respond to battery fires.
Improved Coordination with Local Authorities: Regular training and protocol alignment with fire departments and emergency personnel reduce confusion and increase safety during critical moments.
Minimized Operational Disruption: Pre-established containment and restart procedures limit system downtime.
Reduced Liability Exposure: Legal defenses are stronger when utilities can demonstrate preventive measures and compliance with best practices.
Streamlined Siting and Permitting: Reduced timelines to site and permit energy storage projects through coordinated planning and education of local authorities and communities.
Improved Stakeholder Confidence: Investors, regulators, and community members demand assurance that new energy technologies are being responsibly managed.
Lead Before the Headlines Do
There’s little doubt that as energy storage systems proliferate on America’s electric grids, future battery fires will occur. But having in place a plan to minimize the chance of an incident and respond if one occurs will separate utility leaders focused on safety from those who are not.
Now is the time for utilities to adopt enterprise-wide energy storage safety plans and engage in robust stakeholder engagement and education by developing standard operating procedures for fire and explosion risk, aligning with applicable codes and standards, preparing incident response playbooks, and partnering with local authorities and first responders before systems go online.
As energy storage becomes essential, so too must a robust and well-planned approach to storage safety.