Australia: Tesla Megapack Battery Catches Fire During Testing

Australian media reports that a fire has broken out at Tesla's battery energy storage installation - Victorian Big Battery, located next to Moorabool Terminal Station in Geelong near Melbourne in Victoria, Australia.

The site is under construction with target output of 300 MW / 450 MWh. Once completed, it will consist of around 150 Tesla Megapacks (3 MWh each) in December 2021.

As we can see below, at least one of the Tesla Megapacks caught fire, affecting also the units around. As far as we know at the moment, the fire is under control and did not spread to other units. A single Megapack weighs about 13 tons.

The fire erupted during the testing of the system, just a few days after the site was officially registered for operation.

The investment belongs to Neoen, which operates also the previous world's largest Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia - 150 MW / 193.5 MWh after expansion (also equipped with Tesla batteries - but smaller Powerpack units).

 A fire of one or two Megapacks and potential damages of other units is not good news, but we believe that it will not affect the whole project. However, Tesla will have to figure out what happened. Currently, the cause of fire remains unknown.