Rethinking Battery Safety

In the article “After Moss Landing, what’s next for battery storage?” published by Utility Dive, Jon Williams, CEO of Viridi, emphasizes the need for fundamental changes in battery management and architecture to achieve significant improvements in lithium-ion battery safety. He critiques current safety standards like UL 9540 and UL 9540A as being reactive, focusing on failure modes rather than proactive safety measures. Williams highlights Viridi’s “defense in depth” approach, which incorporates proprietary “fail-safe anti-propagation architecture” alongside other safety systems. According to Viridi, their 50-kWh battery pack boasts a predicted failure rate of 1 in 158.5 GWh, significantly lower than the 1 in 3.3 GWh rate for traditional battery energy storage systems. While acknowledging that Viridi’s systems may have higher upfront costs, Williams argues that they are more cost-effective over their lifecycle due to reduced needs for additional ventilation and fire suppression infrastructure.