Fire during commissioning of Tesla Powerpack battery system at Bohle Plains, Australia
EIR-0635Provisional entry. Confirmed that a fire occurred during commissioning of a Tesla Powerpack system at Bohle Plains, Australia in April 2021 per the EPRI failure database; cause, damage, injuries and emergency response are not yet publicly reported. No further update is scheduled; the entry stays provisional until new information is published.
A fire broke out during commissioning of a battery energy storage system comprising Tesla Powerpacks at Bohle Plains, Australia, on 7 April 2021. The system was rated at 4.0 MW and 8.0 MWh, used NMC lithium-ion chemistry, and was installed in an outdoor configuration as part of a virtual power plant application. Tesla acted as the system integrator. The available source, an entry in the EPRI battery energy storage system failure incident database, does not provide further detail on the cause of the fire, the extent of damage, the emergency response, or whether anyone was injured. No information on downtime, financial loss or regulatory action was reported in the source used for this entry.
- Fires can occur during the commissioning phase of battery energy storage systems, before normal operation begins, so commissioning protocols should include the same fire detection and suppression readiness as operational service.
- Outdoor NMC systems used in virtual power plant applications should have documented pre-energisation safety checks specific to the commissioning stage.
- Operators and integrators should ensure incident data, including root cause and response details, are captured and made available to support sector-wide learning.
EPRI
Published 2026-09-10. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.