Home Electric Battery Storage Unit In Central Germany Explodes, Causing Extensive Damage

Large electric batteries, like those used storing energy for electric cars and homes, are not showing a very good safety record as they are prone to fires and explosions.

Today German site Blackout News here reports how one home in central Germany had an entire exterior wall blown out as a storage battery exploded last Friday. See extent of damage here:

Not only was there extensive damage to the home, which now risks collapsing, but also three people were slightly injured. Police are now investigating.

The police have not made public the manufacturer of the battery, but Blackout News reports that it is a LiFePo4 type battery storage system (pv-magazine).

Lithium-ion batteries can explode or catch fire due to a phenomenon called thermal runaway, which is a chain reaction that occurs when the battery experiences a rapid increase in temperature.

This is not the first time such an incident has occurred. Blackout News reports of “a worrying series of incidents in which photovoltaic home storage systems caught fire. There were already several such incidents in Germany and Austria in the second half of September.”

So far it is not known why the battery reported in this story exploded.