Fire at Yeonggwang solar and battery storage site in South Korea, no injuries

On 13 June 2024, a fire broke out at a battery energy storage facility co-located with a 100MW solar plant in Baeksu-eup, Yeonggwang-gun, Jeollanam-do, South Korea. The blaze was reported shortly after midday and fire authorities responded with 19 pieces of equipment, including one helicopter. The fire took around three hours and twenty minutes to extinguish. One battery storage building was destroyed. No one was inside the facility at the time and no injuries were reported. Local authorities issued an emergency safety alert advising nearby residents to evacuate the area and asking drivers to use alternative routes, citing concerns about possible explosion risk during firefighting. The exact cause of the fire and the scale of the financial loss were still under investigation by fire authorities at the time of reporting. The site had been in commercial operation for around three and a half years.

Not reported in detail. Local reporting on a separate incident at a different, smaller facility in the same county described lithium iron phosphate battery overheating as a suspected cause, but this has not been confirmed for this specific incident.

1. Battery storage fires can require extended firefighting response times and specialist equipment, including aerial support, even when no injuries occur.
2. Emergency evacuation and road closure protocols for nearby residents should be pre-established for co-located solar and storage sites, given uncertainty over explosion risk during a battery fire.
3. Investigations into root cause should be completed and shared publicly where possible to help other operators of similar-aged lithium-ion systems assess their own risk exposure.

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