Extra on the danger posed by Lithium Batteries
Final week I posted an article on the danger posed by lithium batteries following quite a few claims which LMI Claims have just lately been appointed to.
One among our claims consultants Georg Froeschl wrote to say:
Hello Allan,
I spoke to a constructing advisor I take advantage of right here in Canberra (and have carried out so for almost 20 years) about this situation.
An electrical car battery will burn for a minimum of 10 hours and can’t be extinguished by standard firefighting strategies. The one factor the fireplace division can do is transfer the burning car/scooter/bike/and so on. into an open area and let it self-extinguish. The purpose is that extra strata unit occupiers are on the lookout for car and scooter/bike charging stations in strata constructing. In basements there’s usually no area for automobiles allotted besides the allotted parking to every unit. For bikes and scooters the preparations appear to be at greatest advert hoc.
Based on my advisor no residential strata constructing in Australia is designed to face up to a ten hour hearth score. By extension the constructing can have sustained important basement degree structural harm.
The mitigation proposed in our dialog was that every EV charging station is bunded with a brine answer as much as about 1.2 metres to encapsulate the battery which is mostly on the backside of the car. The fireplace burns by means of a casing to the brine and the brine acts as a cooling and extinguishment agent. These would wish particular hearth and warmth rated partitions and air flow. They might have to be close to exits so the car and its containment might be eliminated within the occasion of an incident.
Clearly a retrofit to buildings will probably be costly and never shared enthusiastically by inner combustion engine car house owners. Regulation for basement / under-building charging stations is required urgently to acknowledge the hazards you seek advice from. Our dialog concluded that no certifier would approve an set up (the place this regulation) and the design customary for any such mitigation set up must be addressed.
Variety regards,
Georg
=======================================
That is clearly a threat that as an trade we have to deal with and I hope this sequence of posts helps transfer the dialogue alongside.