Extra on the danger posed by Lithium Batteries
Final week I posted an article on the danger posed by lithium batteries following quite a lot of claims which LMI Claims have lately been appointed to.
Considered one of our claims consultants Georg Froeschl wrote to say:
Hello Allan,
I spoke to a constructing advisor I exploit right here in Canberra (and have finished so for practically 20 years) about this problem.
An electrical automobile battery will burn for at the very least 10 hours and can’t be extinguished by standard firefighting strategies. The one factor the hearth division can do is transfer the burning automobile/scooter/bike/and many others. into an open house and let it self-extinguish. The purpose is that extra strata unit occupiers are searching for automobile and scooter/bike charging stations in strata constructing. In basements there may be typically no house for autos allotted besides the allotted parking to every unit. For bikes and scooters the preparations appear to be at greatest advert hoc.
In keeping with my advisor no residential strata constructing in Australia is designed to resist a ten hour fireplace ranking. By extension the constructing may have sustained vital basement stage structural injury.
The mitigation proposed in our dialog was that every EV charging station is bunded with a brine resolution as much as about 1.2 metres to encapsulate the battery which is usually on the backside of the automobile. The hearth burns via a casing to the brine and the brine acts as a cooling and extinguishment agent. These would want particular fireplace and warmth rated partitions and air flow. They might should be close to exits so the automobile and its containment could be eliminated within the occasion of an incident.
Clearly a retrofit to buildings will probably be costly and never shared enthusiastically by inside combustion engine automobile house owners. Regulation for basement / under-building charging stations is required urgently to acknowledge the hazards you consult with. Our dialog concluded that no certifier would approve an set up (the place this regulation) and the design normal for such a mitigation set up must be addressed.
Form regards,
Georg
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That is clearly a danger that as an business we have to deal with and I hope this collection of posts helps transfer the dialogue alongside.
