Energisation testing will recommence on Wednesday 29th September after regulatory authorities provided the project with approval to resume energisation following the outcomes of the investigations.

Here is Neoen’s Media Release.

 

INVESTIGATIONS

Over the past 8 weeks there have been number of independent investigations, with multiple layers of review, by a combination of people who are directly involved and a number of experts:

• Country Fire Authority
• Energy Safe Victoria
• Work Safe Victoria
• Environmental Protection Authority
• Tesla
• Neoen with their own independent expert

Energy Safe Victoria have released a Statement of Findings.

By November an Independent Report will be released which brings together all the findings and lessons and which will be available on this website.

CAUSE OF THE FIRE

The cause of the fire was identified as coinciding short circuits in two particular locations likely initiated by a coolant leak external to the battery compartment. These occurred while the Megapack was off-line in a service mode that removed fault protections. Enabled by this unlikely sequence of events the fault was able to go undetected and initiate a fire in the adjacent battery compartment. 2 of the site’s 212 Tesla Megapacks were lost in the fire.

REMEDIATIONS

Mitigating actions have been put in place at the facility and across Tesla’s global Megapack fleet, including a combination of firmware enhancements, as well as monitoring and process improvements. Through these actions, Tesla has improved the detectability and associated fault protection against these types of rare events.

TIMING

We expect that the Victorian Big Battery will be ready to start operating in time for the Australian summer.

“Safety is our first priority. We have taken the time to understand the cause of the incident and we have implemented actions to ensure it will not happen again. We would like to thank the Country Fire Association and the regulatory authorities for their thorough investigations. We are now actively working with all stakeholders to complete commissioning and testing of the project and we look forward to sharing the lessons learnt in coming weeks.”

Louis de Sambucy,
Neoen Australia’s Managing Director