IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2020 - 97

p- roprietary and, in general, companies have understandable
reluctance about releasing fault data. Today, the only public
energy storage database (maintained by the DOE) focuses
primarily on installations, technologies, and applications of
energy storage. Creating a clearinghouse of fault information and issues is a more complicated request.
Thus, we recommend that independent third-party stakeholders create a public database of causal links and fault data
that companies can use to enhance predictive-monitoring
applications in their systems. This task may be daunting for
individuals but may not be as difficult for those organizations
dedicated to supporting ESS safety. The safety of first responders is enough of a reason to encourage system integrators and
others involved in system maintenance to collaborate in the
public process of identifying these causal relationships and
leading indicators.

Summary and Recommendations
In this article, we recommended that the energy storage
industry shift to a predictive-monitoring and maintenance
process as the next step in improving BESS safety and
operations. Predictive maintenance is already employed in
other utility applications such as power plants, wind turbines, and PV systems. This process complements current
BESS codes and standards and also contributes to broad
efforts to design safer systems. Such an approach is necessary because of the following:
✔✔ BESS failures are still occurring despite tremendous
efforts to mitigate the key faults believed to be the
contributing factors in the failures.
✔✔ When faults do occur, the steps taken to contain the
failure (and protect human safety) usually result in the
total loss of the unit.
✔✔ Current standards for BESSs emphasize factory testing, commissioning, and emergency response rather
than guidance for operation and maintenance.
The goal of a predictive process is to identify the indicator of a recoverable fault to initiate an inexpensive maintenance operation and prevent the initial fault from cascading
into a catastrophic failure. However, creating the causal links
between end-failure states and their key indicators is a daunting task, especially at this early stage of the BESS industry.
This article described how system integrators may establish
these links during the design phase and using data analytics
on fielded systems. Despite challenges, the benefits of predictive maintenance approaches in reducing catastrophic failures
and improving safety are too great to ignore. Even today, with
companies such as NEC using only their own historical data,
the approach is providing great value. Despite this success
story, the industry would ultimately benefit from a public/professional consortium creating a database of all the issues that
lead to larger problems/warning signs of failure. This greater
transparency would enhance safety without eroding commercial competitive advantages.

november/december 2020

Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge funding from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Electricity Energy Storage Program under the direction of Dr. Imre Gyuk. Sandia
National -L aboratories is a m
- ultimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering
Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of
Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of
Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under
Contract DE-NA0003525. This article describes objective
technical results and analysis. Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in the article do not necessarily
represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.

For Further Reading
D. Rosewater and A. Williams, "Analyzing system safety in
lithium-ion grid energy storage," J. Power Sources, vol. 300,
pp. 460-471, Dec. 2015. doi: 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2015.09.068.
"Energy storage permitting and interconnection process guide
for New York City: Lithium-ion outdoor systems," Smart DG Hub,
New York, Feb. 2020. [Online]. Available: https://nysolarmap
.com/resources/reports-and-guides/solarplusstorage/storage
-permitting/
"EPRI energy storage safety: 2016, guidelines developed
by the Energy Storage Integration Council for distributionconnected systems," Electric Power Res. Inst., Washington,
D.C., June 30, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.epri
.com/research/products/000000003002008308
"GRIDSTOR safety, operation and performance of gridconnected energy storage systems," DNV GL, Oslo, Norway, Sept. 2017. [Online]. Available: https://rules.dnvgl.com/
docs/pdf/DNVGL/RP/2017-09/DNVGL-RP-0043.pdf
H. Kubo and H. Satake, "Testing large-scale energy-storage
systems: Novel safety evaluations can be run in a spacious, new
indoor chamber available in Japan," IEEE Electrific. Mag.,
vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 62-69, Sept. 2018. doi: 10.1109/MELE.2018.
2849923.
"Codes and standards update," Energy Storage Safety Collaborative. Accessed on: Sept. 2, 2020. [Online]. Available:
https://www.sandia.gov/energystoragesafety-ssl/

Biographies
Richard Fioravanti is with Quanta Technology, Washington, D.C.
Kiran Kumar is with NEC Energy Solutions, Westborough, Massachusetts.
Shinobu Nakata is with the National Institute of Technology and Evaluation, Tokyo, Japan.
Babu Chalamala is with Sandia National Laboratories,
Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Yuliya Preger is with Sandia National Laboratories,
-Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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https://nysolarmap.com/resources/reports-and-guides/solarplusstorage/storage-permitting/ https://nysolarmap.com/resources/reports-and-guides/solarplusstorage/storage-permitting/ https://nysolarmap.com/resources/reports-and-guides/solarplusstorage/storage-permitting/ https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000003002008308 https://www.epri.com/research/products/000000003002008308 https://rules.dnvgl.com/docs/pdf/DNVGL/RP/2017-09/DNVGL-RP-0043.pdf https://rules.dnvgl.com/docs/pdf/DNVGL/RP/2017-09/DNVGL-RP-0043.pdf https://www.sandia.gov/energystoragesafety-ssl/

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2020

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