Sydney:
A blaze at a huge Tesla battery website in Australia that began 3 days ago was brought beneath manage on Monday, firefighters stated.
Emergency services have been initial named to the Victoria Big Battery project — constructed by French renewable power firm Neoen making use of Tesla batteries — on Friday morning.
A 13-tonne lithium battery inside a shipping container had caught fire at the website close to Geelong, about an hour’s drive from Australia’s second city Melbourne, the Country Fire Service (CFA) stated.
“There was one battery pack on fire to start with, but it did spread to a second pack that was very close to it,” incident controller Ian Beswicke stated in a statement.
Images released by the CFA showed a cloud of smoke increasing from one of the units at the website.
The fire service stated the incident had been declared “under control” just following 3 pm (0500 GMT) on Monday.
“Firefighters have successfully completed the operation of opening all doors to the container of the battery, with no sign of fire,” the CFA stated in an update.
Fire authorities stated the trigger of the blaze was unknown.
“A smaller number of firefighters and fire trucks from CFA will remain on scene for the next 24 hours as a precaution in case of reignition, the update added.
“The will continue taking thermal temperature readings two-hourly to monitor broken units.”
The battery site — one of the largest in the world — is designed to store energy produced by renewables and send power to the grid.
Local residents were initially warned about the possibility of toxic smoke but the Environmental Protection Agency said monitoring had shown “great air high-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.
“Investigation preparations are underway and physical inspections will commence as soon as the CFA have completed their procedures,” he stated.
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