World / Fire at Tesla's battery megapack in Australia under control after three days

Victoria: Fire crews have extinguished a blaze at Victoria’s new Tesla Big Battery, the largest lithium-ion battery in the country, after taking more than three days to bring it under control.

One of the Tesla megapack batteries at the site in Moorabool, near Geelong, caught fire during testing shortly after 10am on Friday.

The Victorian Big Battery, with a capacity of 300 megawatts and 450 megawatt-hours, is three times bigger than the initial size of billionaire Elon Musk’s Tesla big battery built in South Australia in 2017.

Owned and operated by French renewable energy giant Neoen, the battery was scheduled to begin operating before this summer’s peak demand period.

Neoen Australia’s managing director Louis de Sambucy said the fire at the site has “subsided” by Friday evening. He said emergency services remained at the site with Tesla staff and contractors to monitor the temperature decline of two affected battery packs.

But it wasn’t until about 3pm on Monday that firefighters were able to declare the blaze under control. The Country Fire Authority later confirmed it had been extinguished.

“Firefighters have successfully completed the operation of opening all doors to the container of the battery, with no sign of fire,” the authority said.

The authority said that, because of the nature of the fire – a 13-tonne battery – firefighters couldn’t put water on it or employ ordinary suppression methods. Instead, they had to let it “burn out” and wait for the container to cool down enough to open its doors.

About 150 firefighters from the authority and Fire Rescue Victoria were on the scene over the weekend, as well as more than 30 fire trucks and support vehicles.

The CFA said some firefighters and fire trucks would remain at the Moorabool site for 24 hours in case the fire reignited.

Crews would monitor the damaged units by taking thermal temperature readings every two hours, the authority said.

Authorities had warned of toxic smoke billowing from the site on Friday. Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority has been monitoring air quality at the site over the weekend, and determined it was “good” by Monday afternoon.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said the Country Fire Authority, Energy Safe Victoria and WorkSafe Victoria would work with Neoen and Tesla to do a “full and comprehensive” investigation of the fire.

“This will span investigations into the basis of the fire, how it started and to ensure the site is safe as a workplace,” the government spokeswoman said.

“The battery has been disconnected from Victoria’s energy grid, and the Australian Energy Market Operator has advised there is no impact on our energy security.”

The Victorian Big Battery is one of several battery projects that have been announced in recent months.

Neoen has said it is too early to know whether the Moorabool site fire will have implications for the project.

Earlier this year Origin Energy unveiled ambitious plans to build a 700-megawatt battery at its Eraring coal-fired power station in NSW, which would be the nation’s largest, while AGL is seeking to roll out 1000 megawatts of batteries across several sites.

The Victorian government has committed to spending $84 million over 11 years on the battery project.