Fire at wind farm battery storage system in Yeongam-gun, South Korea

On 2 June 2018 at around 4:13pm local time, a fire broke out in a building housing a battery energy storage system inside a wind power plant in Geummyeon, Yeongam-gun, Jeollanam-do, South Korea. The local fire brigade responded and had the scene under control by around 5:55pm. No injuries were reported. Fire authorities stated they believed the fire started in the storage facility, which stored electricity generated by the wind turbines, and said they were investigating the cause and extent of the damage. The battery system was reportedly around 2.4 years old at the time of the incident and used Samsung SDI NMC lithium-ion cells in an indoor installation supporting wind power integration.

Not reported beyond the fact that the fire originated within the storage facility; cause was under investigation at the time of reporting.

1. Battery storage systems co-located with renewable generation, including wind farms, require the same fire detection and suppression standards as standalone BESS installations.
2. Indoor battery enclosures should have monitoring systems capable of early detection of thermal anomalies to allow rapid emergency response.
3. Post-incident investigations into cause and damage extent should be published where possible to support sector-wide learning, particularly for systems using NMC chemistry given its documented thermal runaway risks.

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