Energy Storage Science and Technology ›› 2025, Vol. 14 ›› Issue (6): 2362-2376.doi: 10.19799/j.cnki.2095-4239.2024.1151

• Energy Storage System and Engineering • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Statistical analysis of fire and explosion accidents in electrochemical energy-storage stations from 2017 to 2024 throughout the world

Shuai YUAN1(), Yujie CUI2, Donghao CHENG1,3(), Feng TAI1, Jinzhong WU2   

  1. 1.China Academy of Civil Aviation Science and Technology, Beijing 100028, China
    2.Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing 400074, China
    3.Engineering and Technical Research Center of Civil Aviation Safety Analysis and Prevention of Beijing, Beijing 100028, China
  • Received:2024-12-04 Revised:2024-12-14 Online:2025-06-28 Published:2025-06-27
  • Contact: Donghao CHENG E-mail:yuanshuai@mail.castc.org.cn;chengdh@mail.castc.org.cn

Abstract:

The wide application of lithium-ion batteries in electrochemical energy-storage stations (EESSs) has led to frequent fire and explosion accidents. In order to study deeply the causal factors responsible for such accidents, we examined the 90 accidents caused by lithium-ion batteries that occurred in EESSs around the world from November 2017 to September 2024. These accidents were analyzed based on four aspects: the type of batteries, the countries where the accidents occurred, the states of the EESSs, and the factors that caused the accidents. Fifteen risk factors,including equipment risk, human risk, and environmental risk,were evaluated systematically using the Delphi method and the risk-matrix method. The results show that the number of accidents caused by lithium ternary batteries is more than 2.5 times the number of accidents caused by lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. Republic of Korea experienced the highest number of accidents—34—which accounted for 37.8% of the total number of accidents. Seventy-two EESSs accidents occurred during operation, accounting for 80.0% of the total number of accidents. Human factors accounted for the largest proportion of the total numbers of accidents, which was 43.3%. The main factors responsible for causing these accidents were cooling-system failure, battery overcharging, inadequate fire-protection facilities, failure of the battery-management system (BMS)/power-conversion system (PCS)/energy-management system (EMS), and high and low ambient temperature. To reduce the risk due to these factors, preventive and control measures were proposed to enhance the system safety of EESSs.

Key words: electrochemical energy storage stations, fire and explosion accidents, statistical analysis, risk matrix method

CLC Number: