Environment
Two Tesla Megapacks caught fire at giant battery project in Nevada
Two Tesla Megapacks caught fire this week at a massive 360 MW battery project in Boulder City, near Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 2021, Tesla and Arevon signed a deal for the former to supply a record amount of 2 GW/6 GWh of Megapack batteries to the latter for several new energy storage projects.
One of those projects is the ‘Townsite Solar and Storage Facility’ located in Boulder City, Nevada, a few miles from Las Vegas, and it consists of over half a million solar panels and 360 MWh of Tesla Megapacks.
The project started in 2022.
Tuesday night, at around 7PM, the Boulder City Police Department received a 911 call to report a fire at the Townsite facility.
The Boulder City Fire Department and Henderson Fire Department were rapidly on the scene and found that one of the Tesla Megapacks was engulfed in flames.
They applied a lot of water, but hours later, the battery system was still in flames.
Shortly before midnight, a second Megapack reportedly caught fire. It’s unclear if the fire spread to the second unit or if it ignited independently.
At 12:30 a.m., the Boulder City Fire Department issued the following update:
“The fire is in a smoldering phase and has been turned over to the company reps. They will notify us if anything flares up or there are concerns. We are clearing the area at this time.”
The nearby interstate was closed for an extended period of time due to the fire, but everything is reportedly under control now.
Electrek’s Take
Megapack fires have been statistically rare, considering the volume of batteries deployed through the system.
There were two fires at Tesla’s flagship projects in Australia and California in 2021 and 2022.
In 2023, we also saw a Tesla Megapack used for a mobile Tesla Supercharger catching on fire.
What is a bit more worrying about this is that Megapacks are designed to be able to contain fires and the projects are specifically constructed so that a fire can’t spread from one unit to another. It’s not clear what happened in this case. We will have to wait for the investigation.
Separately, Tesla recently recalled some Powerwall 2s, its other main stationary storage product, over fire risks.
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