A blaze at a massive Tesla battery site in Australia that started on Friday last week was brought under control yesterday, firefighters said.
Emergency services were first called to the Victoria Big Battery project — built by French renewable energy firm Neoen using Tesla batteries — on Friday morning.
A 13-tonne lithium battery inside a shipping container had caught fire at the site near Geelong, about an hour’s drive from Melbourne, the Country Fire Service said.
“There was one battery pack on fire to start with, but it did spread to a second pack that was very close to it,” fire service incident controller Ian Beswicke said in a statement.
Images released by the fire service showed a cloud of smoke rising from one of the units at the site.
The fire service said the incident had been declared “under control” just after 3pm yesterday.
“Firefighters have successfully completed the operation of opening all doors to the container of the battery, with no sign of fire,” the fire service said in an update.
The fire service said the cause of the blaze was unknown.
“A smaller number of firefighters and fire trucks ... will remain on scene for the next 24 hours as a precaution in case of re-ignition,” the update added. “They will continue taking thermal temperature readings two-hourly to monitor damaged units.”
The battery site — one of the largest in the world — is designed to store energy produced by renewable sources and send power to the grid.
Local residents were initially warned about the possibility of toxic smoke, but the Australian Environmental Protection Agency said monitoring had shown “good air quality” near homes.
Neoen Australia managing director Louis de Sambucy said no one was injured in the incident, and with the site disconnected from the grid, there had been no impact on electricity supply.
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