Battery storage fire in Warwick, New York involved unauthorised system
EIR-0738Other entries that name Warwick
- Fire at Church Street Battery Storage Facility, Warwick, New York, involves unauthorized system
- Single container fire at West Warwick 3 Battery Storage Site in Warwick, New York
- Battery Storage Fire and Fume Release at Two Warwick, New York Sites
- Manufacturing defect in Powin battery units blamed for Warwick storage fires
- Battery storage fire burns for a second day at Warwick energy storage facility, New York
Provisional entry. Published from first reports. This entry is rechecked automatically and updated when more sources appear. Next update: 17 September 2026.
On 19 December, reported by Energy-Storage.News in January 2026, a fire occurred at the Church Street Battery Storage Facility in Warwick, New York, a project of energy storage developer Convergent Energy and Power. A fire alarm triggered an emergency response plan, and the fire was confined to one container with no reported injuries. Orange County Hazmat conducted continuous air monitoring, with the mayor's office reporting hydrogen cyanide at 0.5 parts per million near the facility, about half the federal safety limit, while downwind monitoring sites recorded zero readings. Monitoring continued until 22 December as battery temperatures dropped. The batteries were fully charged at the time of the fire and were later reduced to 50% capacity as a safety measure. The system has since been disconnected from the grid, internally disengaged and tarped, with damaged batteries expected to be removed and a full investigation to follow.
The cause is unconfirmed, but water infiltration is suspected, possibly linked to severe weather conditions before the event. The Village of Warwick stated that Convergent did not hold a Certificate of Compliance because enhanced safety monitoring requirements had not been met, and that the facility should not have been operational. Those additional requirements followed two earlier incidents involving Convergent projects in Warwick, including a 2023 overheating of a Church Street unit also believed to have been caused by moisture infiltration. The mayor's office said the requests for additional safety monitoring made after the 2023 incidents were dismissed by both Powin, the battery integrator, and Convergent. Convergent did not respond to the publication's request for comment.
- Recurring failure modes at a site, such as water infiltration, should trigger design or enclosure changes rather than repeated incident response alone.
- Systems should not be operated before required certificates of compliance and any enhanced monitoring conditions imposed by local authorities are satisfied.
- Responsibility for post-incident testing, cleanup and engineering costs should be set out before commissioning, to avoid disputes after an event.
- Continuous air monitoring for combustion by-products such as hydrogen cyanide, including downwind points, should form part of standard emergency response for battery fires near communities.
Published 2026-09-15. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.