225 - Battery Energy Storage Systems with Noah Ryder

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Hello everybody, welcome to the Fire Science Show.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I've just came back from Hong Kong where I've attended the fourth International Lithium Battery Fire Safety Symposium.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What an excellent conference that was congratulations to Professor Xinyan Huang and his team at the HK PolyU for organizing this fantastic, fantastic conference.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I've learned a lot about battery fire safety and also while being there, I've picked some interesting topics or interesting presentations that were shown that I thought could be of high use to the fire science show community.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Some I've recorded on place, some of I've got the speakers agreed to give me an interview in future.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>But regardless, I'll be releasing them because battery fire safety is one of the most interesting parts of fire safety right now.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you like it or not, it's something coming for all of us and we need to be prepared and need to be aware of what's happening.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>While there was a ton of talks about electrolytes, uh separators, uh chemistries, modeling, etc.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I was looking for talks that are practical and directly useful to our craft.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And today, first of such talks, my interview with uh Noah Ryder from Fire and Risk Alliance who was talking about battery energy storage systems, BSS, and those are popping like crazy everywhere.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I had a skewed idea of what a battery energy storage system looks like.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I had some ideas how to give a safety to the ones that I had in mind, but as the structure evolves, as the idea, the concept of a storage system evolves, uh and the solutions must evolve as well.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>In this talk, I've tried to pick Noah about how those storage systems are constructed, what drives their design, what drives the way, what shapes them, how people decide how to construct them and how to join them into bigger, larger energy storage parks.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Because all of those are important considerations when we want to provide the fire safety of such a storage system.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>An important question that a fire engineer has to ask what is considered a safe storage system?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>At what point we believe we have provided safety for those devices because this will also also determine how we will construct the safety systems within the cells, batteries, modules, or entire devices.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So well, anyway, I've talked enough and let's give the microphone to Noah.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This is recorded in live at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It was a great discussion, and I hope it's a nice listen for you.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Let's be an intro and jump into the episode.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Welcome to the Fire Science Show.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>My name is Wojciech Wegrzynski and I will be your host.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>As the UK leading independent fire consultancy, OFR's globally established team have developed a reputation for preeminent fire engineering expertise with colleagues working across the world to help protect people, property and the planet.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Established in the UK in twelve sixteen as a startup business by two highly experienced fire engineering consultants, the business continues to grow at a phenomenal rate with offices across the country in eight locations, from Edinburgh to Bath and plans for future expansions.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you're keen to find out more or join OFR consultants during this exciting period of growth, visit their website at OFR Consultants.com.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And now back to the episode.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Hello everybody.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I am joined today by Noah Ryder from Fire and Risk Alliance.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Hey Noah, good to have you in the podcast.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Good to be here.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thanks for having me.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, thanks for agreeing to do it the live.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yay, we're live in Hong Kong at the beautiful um Fourth International Symposium on Battery Fire S afety.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Are you enjoying it so far?

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<v Noah Ryder>It's been great.

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<v Noah Ryder>It's been great.

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<v Noah Ryder>City is lovely and uh a lot of good technical presentations.

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<v Noah Ryder>So uh enjoying my first trip here, actually.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You know, I really love how when I go for tunneling conferences to Germany because the Swiss German guys are the ones who are building tunnels and have good technology, you learn from them.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And I can say the same thing about uh going for a battery conference to China.

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<v Noah Ryder>There are definitely quite a lot to learn, and uh, I think you know, just from what we've seen in terms of the sheer number of papers here and high quality ones, it's uh a lot obviously a lot of the manufacturing is happening here, so it makes sense that there's quite a bit of uh good information coming out.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Manufacturing investment, you know, they it feels really strategic in here, and I think they are doing it on a purpose, and I think they understand the purpose very well.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And I mean, it's also highly we're gonna talk about battery energy storage systems, so but this is so relevant.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Like I see the developments happening in here because they understand the sheer amount of battery energy storage that we would probably like.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What do you think?

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<v Noah Ryder>Uh 100%.

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<v Noah Ryder>I think the you know, as you kind of pointed out, there's been some very, I'd say, high-level strategic thinking and planning in terms of the battery development and just the industries that the batteries can serve.

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<v Noah Ryder>So obviously there's the EV side of it.

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<v Noah Ryder>I'm more focused, or today we're going to talk more about the energy storage side of it.

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<v Noah Ryder>But you know, the amount of effort that's going into improving technologies, manufacturing, safety across the board, I think is pretty impressive.

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<v Noah Ryder>I think for them, it's such a critical part of their infrastructure and you know products that they're selling worldwide that they have an inherent interest in safety in a way for the industry in a way that other maybe standalone companies or countries may not have.

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<v Noah Ryder>So it's it's it's it's neat to see.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If we talk about battery energy storage systems, uh, how many batteries do we need?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Like what scale are we even talking about?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Because I I see numbers in megawatts, gigawatts, uh, gigawatt hours.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's like a very abstract unit to me.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>How big is that?

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, no, I mean it's it's a great question.

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<v Noah Ryder>So I mean, I think in terms of the the of how many we need, I I think the short answer is if we could snap our fingers and have as much as we need today, we would.

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<v Noah Ryder>Um, but when we when we look at that in terms of actual quantities, you know, there's if you start at the base level, just to give some idea, there's we're producing probably in the order of about 10 billion new battery cells each year.

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<v Noah Ryder>Not all of those obviously are going towards energy storage, but an increasing number is.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so right now within the US, we're sitting at around probably close to about 80, maybe 90 gigawatt of installed capacity.

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<v Noah Ryder>China is uh around 230 or so.

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<v Noah Ryder>And over the next three to five years, they're expecting that to probably triple the kind of the baseline case.

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<v Noah Ryder>And if we kind of push expectations, you may get to you know four or five times uh more installed capacity than we have today.

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<v Noah Ryder>So you might be looking at a terawatt hour of uh installed capacity in China by you know 2027.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So when we define this in gigawatts or or watt hours, the gigawatts reflect to how much you can instantaneously take out of it and what hours means how much it contains?

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

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<v Noah Ryder>So I mean generally the way you'll see it is you'll hear like a if you talk about an energy storage system, they'll say, oh, this is a hundred megawatt site, or it'll be uh uh 400 megawatt hours.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so really the key is is like what is your duration of operation and then what you can simultaneously discharge to the system.

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<v Noah Ryder>So some cases they're looking at like a four-hour system, in some cases it's a one-hour system.

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<v Noah Ryder>It really just depends on kind of the use case that's there, but that's why uh almost always uh a specific energy storage site will have two numbers associated with it.

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<v Noah Ryder>It'll be you know a 100 megawatt, 400 megawatt hour or so for if they're you know, those kind of things.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Um a power bank is like 50, 60 watt hours, a car is like kilowatt hours.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, I mean a car battery, like for a big car, you know, battery pack is a hundred kilowatt hour pack.

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay, that's a big car.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Um that's the one that gives you 600 kilometers or 400 miles.

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<v Noah Ryder>This is like top of the line, go as far as you can, kind of thing.

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<v Noah Ryder>And then by scale, right?

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<v Noah Ryder>I mean, not that many people have them anymore, but you know, your standard incandescent light bulb is 100 watts.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

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<v Noah Ryder>So, you know, when you start looking at scales, um, these are massive systems that we're talking about.

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<v Noah Ryder>Obviously, they have to be because they're supporting entire grid infrastructures and homes.

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<v Noah Ryder>So most of the ones that we talk about today in terms of size are sufficient to power tens of thousands of homes, sometimes up to you know, a hundred thousand homes, just depending on on where it's at.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What was the purpose of those?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What the role do they play?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Because we we didn't have them 10, 20 years ago and we were just fine.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Like I know we store the energy in mountains.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Like you have build a water tank on top of a mountain, you pump water up, then it goes down.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I understood that it's it's to conserve some energy when it's cheaper and then spend it when there's a peak.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What what role do those devices play now?

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<v Noah Ryder>So, in some regards, they play a similar role as kind of your hydraulic uh type systems that were storing in based on water or flywheel type systems and more mechanical basis systems.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Oh, I love those.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I love those.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, so I mean the the concept of energy storage is not new.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, yeah.

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<v Noah Ryder>What has changed over the past 20 or 30 years, I think, one is is our is our needs, our power needs have skyrocketed and the grid infrastructure has generally not kept up.

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<v Noah Ryder>So we haven't been building uh, you know, quite as many power plants and everything else.

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<v Noah Ryder>But what has happened is we've built more uh wind and solar power, which is great.

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<v Noah Ryder>And the the biggest or one of the bigger challenges I'd say is that if there was excess power that was generated, it just literally went to ground.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so energy storage in particular batteries kind of fills that gap.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so it can take all that extra.

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<v Noah Ryder>It helps you uh not need to spin up like a peaker plant.

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<v Noah Ryder>Um, in some cases, you may not have to build the plant at all.

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<v Noah Ryder>So it really kind of fits this gap in needs where if there's excess power generation, or well, and that's typically at night or you know, other low use times, then you can store all that for later.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so that's really where it's kind of filled in.

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<v Noah Ryder>Um, the other big use case that we're seeing now is for entities that want to be more energy independent.

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<v Noah Ryder>They're doing their own microgrids.

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<v Noah Ryder>And so they they may have a tie and get power from from the made infrastructure, but they have the ability to basically island themselves and they can operate for anywhere from several hours to, in some cases, several days without any outside uh uh uh energy needs.

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<v Noah Ryder>So that's kind of a pretty wide range, but yeah.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>In your from your talk, I captured that a lot of this development.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Obviously, the renewables, like you mentioned just before, is is one of the drivers, but also the data centers and AI, which are extreme uh power consumers.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What role does play in in those resiliency uh or yeah?

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<v Noah Ryder>So I mean data centers are an interesting one because we see, you know, I I think I I saw a recent uh uh number just the other day that the kind of the big guys, if you will, that they spent 400 billion dollars on AI infrastructure in 2025 alone.

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<v Noah Ryder>Like a hardware, yeah, yeah, just everything.

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<v Noah Ryder>And it's just so I mean I think a lot of it's been the most of it's or a good chunk has been on the hardware because it's it's really expensive.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I know I bought one GPU for computation, it's like just one.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yes, yeah, exactly.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, sometimes you know it's like uh it's tough.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>But um I preferred the times when Bitcoin was driving it, you know.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>They those guys needed less.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, yeah, and it it was bad enough then, but no, it's definitely it's kind of uh order of magnitude and um they're power hogs.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

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<v Noah Ryder>So we kind of see two things happening in the data center space.

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<v Noah Ryder>I'd say one is is kind of still kind of the the you know standalone energy storage systems, kind of your standard boxes that are outside, or replacements for your lead-acid batteries that are kind of in your mechanical rooms or wherever, your your UPS applications.

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<v Noah Ryder>The other it that's happening that is, I think, frankly, more interesting from a fire safety standpoint is almost everybody is integrating them directly into racks.

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<v Noah Ryder>Um so it's you may have a a rack that's half filled with GPUs and then half filled with batteries.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>And they're scaling those out as the as the data center is being filled in.

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<v Noah Ryder>So the white space might take a year to fill in, and the stuff that uh gets built first may use one battery design, and by the time they get to the end, it may be a different one.

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<v Noah Ryder>So uh yeah.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean, uh that goes a little bit uh away from the subject of this interview, which I hope to be the battery energy storage.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>But it is interesting.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's very interesting uh what drives this need.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I mean I am of a belief, um we we are talking for the first time.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I'm of a belief that the fire engineers need to very well understand the reasons why people do things because that allows them to do fire engineering efficiently, and otherwise we just ban stuff to people and they hate us.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I I would love to understand why such uh dispersion of the net why put it on the rack?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What's the benefit of putting it on a rack versus having a container outside of your building?

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Because for me as a fire engineer, hey, your computer is like pretty expensive, like, and this is like pretty fiery.

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<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh how about the move it outside?

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<v Noah Ryder>So I think there's the pros and cons discussion.

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<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, I think the other aspect is that there's the knowledge and what information they have.

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<v Noah Ryder>So I think one of the challenges and one of the things we've seen is is sometimes there's really not a whole lot of thought given to, oh, we're just gonna do this because why not?

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>And and so the potential that it may increase the risk to their facility is kind of has been glossed over.

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>Um, and and this is going a little bit far afield, but not entirely.

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<v Noah Ryder>I uh so if you look at the history of what kind of the cost of the IT equipment has been as you put it into these facilities, if you look 10 years ago at a standard kind of search type of of equipment, it was nominally $10,000 per square foot.

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>Assuming you had an eight to ten foot tall rack.

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>Now it's three hundred to five hundred thousand dollars per square foot.

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<v Noah Ryder>So we we've seen two orders of magnitude increase in the cost of the equipment, but the risk in the thought process in terms of how we approach it from fire safety and what the kind of the concerns are hasn't caught up yet.

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<v Noah Ryder>So I I think as far as an industry goes, they're they're starting to get up to speed on that.

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<v Noah Ryder>I think that's there.

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<v Noah Ryder>And I think that will actually help drive it.

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<v Noah Ryder>And there may be some push to do uh some more outside.

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<v Noah Ryder>But to answer your the the the original question, part of it is if I put a box outside, I think nobody would would disagree that it's safer.

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<v Noah Ryder>However, it means that I'm stuck with that box and whatever it can do for the next 20 to 30 years.

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<v Noah Ryder>Okay.

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<v Noah Ryder>And I have to pay that infrastructure cost up front.

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<v Noah Ryder>I gotta do it, I gotta have it all installed.

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<v Noah Ryder>If I can build it out within my white space, I can build out something today for my use today.

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<v Noah Ryder>And if my needs change six months from now, I can build that out to address that.

00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:32.320
<v Noah Ryder>And I can continue to do that.

00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:40.639
<v Noah Ryder>And so, you know, if a project takes three years to complete, what was installed day one may look very different than what was installed day three year year three.

00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:47.600
<v Noah Ryder>So it gives them a lot of flexibility uh to adapt to you know, ultimately what their very modular design.

00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.080
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, it's it's I I have a fondness for Legos.

00:15:50.080 --> 00:15:55.120
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, and so I always like to think of things in terms of like, hey, this is this is modular, it's blocky.

00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:57.120
<v Noah Ryder>Can I put it together and take apart easily?

00:15:57.120 --> 00:15:59.759
<v Noah Ryder>And I think that's kind of how they're approaching it.

00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:01.759
<v Noah Ryder>Um it's a big benefit too.

00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:08.720
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I thought there will be more direct answer, like, oh yeah, the cable cost is like this, or something, but it's it seems multifactual.

00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:22.240
<v Noah Ryder>I I think it's yeah, I think it really comes down to as opposed to a utility type architecture where they're looking at a 30-year time scale for this piece of equipment, they may install it, run it for two or three years, and rip it out and replace it with something new.

00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:22.639
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:30.799
<v Noah Ryder>Uh so they're I don't want to say they're not cost driven, but cost is the secondary or tertiary level you know thing.

00:16:31.039 --> 00:16:54.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I mean, I'm sometimes uh not very optimistic, and what they see here is the steam engine case, you know, when the the first industrialization came up, you had the massive steam engine in the middle of your plant, you built everything around the steam engine, then those stuff those things started burning and you start losing a lot of money, and here comes factory mutual and sprinklers and everything, you know.

00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:56.720
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I wonder if this is the same pathway.

00:16:56.720 --> 00:16:57.440
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I hope not.

00:16:57.440 --> 00:17:00.639
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh okay, let's move to the battery energy storage systems.

00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:03.759
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>In your talk, you gave an overview of topologies.

00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:09.680
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I must say, for me, if I think about battery energy storage system, I see a container to which I walk in.

00:17:09.680 --> 00:17:13.680
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>There are like racks of devices on the walls.

00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:16.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>From your talk, I already know I'm I'm antique.

00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:24.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh so uh let's perhaps walk the listeners through the existing uh technologies and generations of technologies in energy storage systems, how they evolved.

00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:26.480
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, so that's a great question.

00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:30.160
<v Noah Ryder>Um so I think if you if you go back, you know, say a a decade.

00:17:30.640 --> 00:17:31.839
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Oh, that's ancient times.

00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:37.839
<v Noah Ryder>It is, it is, but 10, you know, 10 years was you know, kind of the the state of the art was what you just talked about.

00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:43.519
<v Noah Ryder>So it was kind of a a walking container, maybe a building, right?

00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:50.319
<v Noah Ryder>So I mean, obviously, most folks that have some knowledge on on energy storage, they're aware of the the surprise Arizona, the McMicken incident.

00:17:50.319 --> 00:17:51.200
<v Noah Ryder>That was a building.

00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:54.079
<v Noah Ryder>Um, and we can talk about that later a little bit if need be.

00:17:54.079 --> 00:18:05.519
<v Noah Ryder>But but in short, there were structures that you could walk into that, as you said, they had batteries lining the walls and for accessibility, maintenance, HVAC purposes, everything, you know, it had some open space and so forth.

00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:19.440
<v Noah Ryder>As things started to develop and real estate became more valuable, and in particular, as it transitioned from, say, like utilities building these to more development, you know, type of uh operation.

00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:32.880
<v Noah Ryder>So, you know, private equity-backed uh organizations or or whomever that are basically building utility scale, they they kind of looked at it and said, well, why am I wasting you know, effectively half of my space, my surface area?

00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:35.200
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So it really matters from a cost perspective.

00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:37.039
<v Noah Ryder>Uh tremendously, yeah.

00:18:37.039 --> 00:18:39.920
<v Noah Ryder>I mean, if you have unlimited cheap land, it it doesn't really matter.

00:18:40.160 --> 00:18:48.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean, I again it's my distorted image of a data of a data center of something being built in like desert Arizona, like you know, with nothing around.

00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:55.920
<v Noah Ryder>So there certainly is some of that, but I think you know, the the locations are also have to be paired with substations and things that are going to support the grid.

00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:59.440
<v Noah Ryder>And they increase in density build around them, it's a small city now.

00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:00.000
<v Noah Ryder>Yep, yep.

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:16.480
<v Noah Ryder>So so the the you know, your your density per square foot matters a lot, which is why, you know, during this conference, if you see, you know, some people have talked about it a little bit, but you'd see like battery density and what does that translate into in terms of energy per square meter or things like that.

00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:41.440
<v Noah Ryder>So what happened was is that you know, I think partly because on on market needs, partly due to manufacturing and transportation, and everything kind of came together and people started moving away from the walk-in style enclosures to self-contained, kind of more reach-in, where it's it may still have been an ISO container, like generally a 20-foot ISO, but they loaded it up with racks, and you could open the doors and reach in, but you can't be occupied.

00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So you open it from outside, and there's immediately your batteries.

00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:44.960
<v Noah Ryder>Yep, exactly.

00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:50.960
<v Noah Ryder>It basically you could think of it just like you know, they almost look just like server racks, and you just have a fully popular thing.

00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:51.759
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, exactly.

00:19:51.759 --> 00:19:57.440
<v Noah Ryder>And so the only way to access it is by opening the doors and and pulling the modules in and out.

00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:04.000
<v Noah Ryder>So that that started really happening probably six, seven years ago, and is pretty much the default today.

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:15.599
<v Noah Ryder>What we've seen over the past several years is a little bit of a migration uh with more companies moving towards instead of your 20-foot or whatever shipping container style into more modular.

00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:18.079
<v Noah Ryder>So I kind of call them the refrigerators.

00:20:18.079 --> 00:20:28.000
<v Noah Ryder>And so they're all self-enclosed, but I can take three, four, five, ten, whatever it is, refrigerators, sandwiching them together, and that becomes my unit.

00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:32.400
<v Noah Ryder>Um so that is where a lot of entities are moving today.

00:20:32.400 --> 00:20:37.680
<v Noah Ryder>If you see some of the new products that are coming out, you know, over the past year or so and and stuff that's been announced.

00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:37.920
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:20:38.319 --> 00:20:43.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is this uh refrigerator unit uh a wholly self-contained battery energy storage system?

00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:46.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Like does it have management, cooling, everything?

00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:47.119
<v Noah Ryder>They do, yeah.

00:20:47.119 --> 00:20:54.400
<v Noah Ryder>So generally speaking, they they may be linked with the other units or the refrigerators next to them, but they are fully self-contained.

00:20:54.400 --> 00:20:56.720
<v Noah Ryder>Um, they may share like an inverter.

00:20:56.720 --> 00:21:03.279
<v Noah Ryder>Um, so depending on who makes it, there may be some shared resources that are like a master unit and and and storage units.

00:21:03.279 --> 00:21:04.160
<v Noah Ryder>Correct, yeah.

00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:08.400
<v Noah Ryder>And uh so it really just depends on how the OEM is configured it.

00:21:08.400 --> 00:21:19.359
<v Noah Ryder>But generally speaking, they have at the kind of refrigerator level, they've got the full insight from the BMS controls, they can shut it down, they can do whatever else, independent of the other ones there.

00:21:19.599 --> 00:21:22.559
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh how did uh free airspace inside evolve?

00:21:22.559 --> 00:21:25.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean, I obviously decreased, but to what extent?

00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:31.920
<v Noah Ryder>Well, obviously, so I mean if you had the walk-in enclosure, you you may have had 50, 60, 70% free airspace.

00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:37.359
<v Noah Ryder>The systems that we're looking at today are nominally 20% free airspace.

00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:46.240
<v Noah Ryder>And so it's uh dropped drastically in terms of uh how much is there, and and that obviously impacts the safety system and anything else.

00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:50.000
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean to start with cooling, did cooling change significantly also in those?

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:51.119
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So yeah.

00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:55.359
<v Noah Ryder>So I mean, basically, there's you can either do air cooling or liquid cooling.

00:21:55.359 --> 00:22:01.039
<v Noah Ryder>We've seen an increasing number of folks actually move away from air-cooled systems to liquid cooled systems.

00:22:01.039 --> 00:22:10.160
<v Noah Ryder>And so, you know, depending on what approach you've taken uh from a cooling perspective, then obviously the free airspace will impact that as well.

00:22:10.160 --> 00:22:12.480
<v Noah Ryder>That's almost entirely on the operational side.

00:22:12.480 --> 00:22:22.480
<v Noah Ryder>And one of the key things is that even if you were using an air-cooled system, it's technically supposed to be independent of any mechanical ventilation system you may have for safety.

00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:32.559
<v Noah Ryder>But you know, it it's I'd say largely dominated by liquid-cooled systems these days, and they've kind of moved away from the HVAC chiller and kind of approach.

00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:40.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And the casings themselves, the technologies that we work with, uh what's the material of all of the casing?

00:22:40.240 --> 00:22:42.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is it just like a sheet of metal?

00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:43.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is it like insulated?

00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:49.039
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean, it has to be weather controlled and weatherproof, but probably has to have some specific characteristics.

00:22:49.359 --> 00:22:50.880
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, no, that's a good question.

00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:55.440
<v Noah Ryder>So most of them are you know steel structure externally.

00:22:55.440 --> 00:22:59.680
<v Noah Ryder>They at this point in time almost all have some level of insulation.

00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:06.640
<v Noah Ryder>So not driven through safety, uh, but through operations you know, want to keep the temperature and the environment pretty consistent.

00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:14.000
<v Noah Ryder>So most of them will have a couple inches of of some type of insulation, like a rock wall type insulation or something else that's there.

00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:18.240
<v Noah Ryder>Uh, there was a period where folks had some like polyurethane insulation and things like that.

00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:20.640
<v Noah Ryder>Um, fortunately, we've seen a lot of that go away.

00:23:20.880 --> 00:23:25.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh you need to add like a cavity to it, just maybe cover with ACP.

00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:27.039
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You're gonna have a very beautiful system.

00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:27.839
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, yeah.

00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:31.680
<v Noah Ryder>No, it's something that just, you know, if you just want to make the incident as big as possible, go for it.

00:23:31.680 --> 00:23:32.880
<v Noah Ryder>A CLT roof.

00:23:32.960 --> 00:23:33.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh that would be awesome.

00:23:33.759 --> 00:23:34.319
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It'd be great.

00:23:34.480 --> 00:23:34.960
<v Noah Ryder>Um yeah.

00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:38.960
<v Noah Ryder>I mean, we could have a lot of fun with it designing something that would uh you know really burn well.

00:23:38.960 --> 00:23:44.720
<v Noah Ryder>But no, no, fortunately, I think they they have moved towards kind of the non-combustible uh insulation.

00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:48.880
<v Noah Ryder>And and that generally is covering you know all the walls and in the roof deck for the most part.

00:23:48.880 --> 00:23:56.000
<v Noah Ryder>And but that does have a really important impact on the safety calculations uh that they come downstream as well.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:58.319
<v Noah Ryder>Um, obviously, it's kind of like your oven.

00:23:58.319 --> 00:24:03.680
<v Noah Ryder>If I've you know if it does a good job of of insulating and it's gonna keep the heat out if we've got insulating, yeah.

00:24:03.920 --> 00:24:06.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Well, that's the real reason why I'm asking.

00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:08.160
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Also, you know, uh the air cooling.

00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:12.640
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I in my image, like the the device has like some sort of fans on it.

00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:23.039
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I assume there must be to vent out some air from inside, which obviously when you have uh an event inside of the of the thing will be the place where it vents out, you know, the flames, right?

00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:24.559
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh and and uh the casing.

00:24:24.559 --> 00:24:29.119
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you will consider spread from unit to unit, that's the first thing that's protects the unit.

00:24:29.119 --> 00:24:38.319
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If it's just a thin aluminum foil, it's gonna give you a completely different performance than it if it's like a five centimeter sandwich panel with and non-combustible insulation in it.

00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:47.200
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So so though those are tremendously different uh characteristics, and again, I have a feeling that those would be driven by other needs rather than fire itself.

00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:51.680
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is the coolant in in liquid systems combustible or a lot of times it is.

00:24:51.759 --> 00:25:01.200
<v Noah Ryder>So a lot of times it'll be you know, another layer of uh yeah, you know, wet or glycol mix that usually has some flammability to it, so that can add to it for sure.

00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:11.200
<v Noah Ryder>I think you know the the insulation aspect actually what we're seeing is is a little interesting is that safety is starting to slide into it a bit because they need it primarily for operations.

00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:19.359
<v Noah Ryder>But when you do an analysis and you say, okay, we're gonna assume this unit is on fire, regardless of cause, but we're gonna assume it's on fire.

00:25:19.359 --> 00:25:23.680
<v Noah Ryder>And and and the big question is is it going to propagate to another unit?

00:25:23.680 --> 00:25:27.920
<v Noah Ryder>The incident heat flux to a target unit is actually pretty easy to establish, right?

00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:30.799
<v Noah Ryder>There's been plenty of tests, there's models, there's all kinds of stuff.

00:25:30.799 --> 00:25:32.480
<v Noah Ryder>And so we we can do that pretty well.

00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:35.680
<v Noah Ryder>The big question is what happens once it strikes that surface?

00:25:35.680 --> 00:25:38.880
<v Noah Ryder>And so uh we're under a wind detector.

00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:39.200
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:42.960
<v Noah Ryder>Oh Lord, we give it a second to die down here, but it came out of nowhere.

00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:43.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:25:43.839 --> 00:25:56.160
<v Noah Ryder>So uh before we got attacked by the wind, what what's happening from a safety standpoint is when we're trying to evaluate whether propagation from one unit to the next is going to happen, the insulation plays a critical role.

00:25:56.160 --> 00:25:56.640
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:02.000
<v Noah Ryder>So early systems, we looked at, and in many cases didn't have a whole lot of insulation.

00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:08.160
<v Noah Ryder>And so, as you can imagine, steel plate, basically thermally thin, that heat just rips right through it.

00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:11.200
<v Noah Ryder>And and so the inside of the container heated up pretty quickly.

00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:15.039
<v Noah Ryder>And so propagation was was realistic.

00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:16.400
<v Noah Ryder>That's not a good outcome.

00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:19.920
<v Noah Ryder>At the same time, they wanted to maintain the spacing between these units.

00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:24.559
<v Noah Ryder>So if it was six feet or 10 feet, they really wanted it from an energy density standpoint.

00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:29.519
<v Noah Ryder>If you told them they had to be spaced 25 feet apart, that you know economically makes a project not viable.

00:26:29.519 --> 00:26:34.000
<v Noah Ryder>You just changed the entire design to fit more inside and now you're spacing them further.

00:26:34.160 --> 00:26:34.400
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Correct.

00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:35.039
<v Noah Ryder>Right.

00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:36.880
<v Noah Ryder>So so you you're defeating the purpose.

00:26:36.880 --> 00:26:55.279
<v Noah Ryder>So what's happened is that instead of moving out 25 feet, they both from an operational standpoint, but then also from a fire safety standpoint, the insulation is playing more of a role because if I do a better job of insulating it, you can oh yeah, I can now put it at six feet or ten feet safely when I couldn't before.

00:26:55.279 --> 00:26:58.319
<v Noah Ryder>So there's more analysis being done on that.

00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:08.240
<v Noah Ryder>And I think we're seeing you know more OEMs and every everybody kind of look at that as a as a contributing factor, which is which is kind of cool because you know there's interesting work to do there.

00:27:08.480 --> 00:27:08.799
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:13.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I'll put forward a challenging thought, and do you feel free to disagree with it?

00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:31.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Was if I was thinking about uh a safety of a whole like park of those of those systems, and I had a fire within one of those, I mean, if any kind of fire happened to one of those, I would consider this this refrigerator or this container lost, and that's it.

00:27:31.519 --> 00:27:37.200
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I probably would be okay with losing one, I would be very not okay with losing uh the whole field.

00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:40.160
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Maybe I would be okay with losing a few.

00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:46.319
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is this kind of risk-driven thinking a part of the design process for this?

00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:50.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Or the efforts is to save like all the cells within the one of them?

00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:52.160
<v Noah Ryder>Great question.

00:27:52.160 --> 00:27:59.519
<v Noah Ryder>And this is really interesting because we've seen I I I think the the thought process varies depending on who you talk to.

00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:00.000
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay.

00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:13.200
<v Noah Ryder>So we've seen some efforts by OEMs and others, and and I think even if it's at the uh the conference here, you know, there's a lot of focus on how do we stop thermal runaway propagation within a module or something to try and even the cell.

00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:13.599
<v Noah Ryder>Even the cell.

00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:20.799
<v Noah Ryder>Uh I always kind of am like, look, you know, the the cell's a gimme, but that that's you know, that's a different topic.

00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:26.400
<v Noah Ryder>But really the propagation within a module or within the unit itself or externally to other units.

00:28:26.400 --> 00:28:41.440
<v Noah Ryder>The reality from what we've observed is that, you know, whether it's from heat, whether it's from the smoke, whether it's from the the vent gases that come over firefighter operations, firefighter operations, generally speaking, that unit is a gonna be a write-off.

00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:47.519
<v Noah Ryder>Like the insurance company that is insuring it is not going to pretty much allow it to stay in operation.

00:28:47.519 --> 00:28:57.440
<v Noah Ryder>So even if in small events, even where there's only been generally like a single module involved, they generally come in, they take that unit away, whatever the size of the enclosure is.

00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:07.920
<v Noah Ryder>And this may be one of the benefits of having kind of the refrigerator size versus the 20-footers, is that gets taken away and they replace it for warranty purposes, liability, whatever, there's a whole host of stuff.

00:29:07.920 --> 00:29:18.160
<v Noah Ryder>So there is, I don't want to say there's no value in trying to mitigate it, but sometimes I think the thought process is that, oh, this is the panacea.

00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:20.000
<v Noah Ryder>We, if we can do this, we've solved the problem.

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:26.319
<v Noah Ryder>This guy, like, well, you didn't fundamentally change the end outcome, which is I'm taking that container away.

00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:29.839
<v Noah Ryder>You may have changed PR, you may have changed fire size, so forth.

00:29:29.839 --> 00:29:37.039
<v Noah Ryder>So um, depending on kind of who's approaching it um and what their thought process is, they may have different answers to that.

00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:43.200
<v Noah Ryder>But generally speaking, I like to say that it's not my job to say what's acceptable.

00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:46.079
<v Noah Ryder>My job is to tell you what's going to happen.

00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:49.359
<v Noah Ryder>It's your facility, it's your insurer.

00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:52.240
<v Noah Ryder>You have to decide whether that's okay or not.

00:29:52.240 --> 00:29:56.559
<v Noah Ryder>Most people are gonna say one container is fine, some damage to the ones around it.

00:29:56.559 --> 00:30:00.640
<v Noah Ryder>The field absolutely is a loss, uh, or is a, you know, cannot be a Total loss.

00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:08.319
<v Noah Ryder>And we've seen pretty good kind of agreement around that, both from the insurance companies as well as you know, developers and everybody else.

00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:17.839
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, I guess it also will uh change with the change in energy density, it will change with the, let's say, uh technical sophistication of the device.

00:30:17.839 --> 00:30:28.400
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>If you're using like uh reused car batteries for some reason, yeah, versus new uh super high-tech tells that that give you a completely different performance that's gonna probably matter.

00:30:28.400 --> 00:30:39.279
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And also if we move to the centralized, as in the battery storage being on top of a rack, then perhaps it's like this the intervention should be at a smaller scale.

00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:41.519
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, so the use case is critical.

00:30:41.519 --> 00:30:41.839
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:30:41.839 --> 00:30:42.319
<v Noah Ryder>For sure.

00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:56.319
<v Noah Ryder>And I think that's you know, the from the talk you've seen, but you know, I always like to focus on analyzing the risk so we understand, and the risk is really going to be impacted by where this thing is installed.

00:30:56.319 --> 00:31:11.680
<v Noah Ryder>And so, you know, you put something out in the middle of a field remote from everything, and you can have a large event, nobody really cares, but you put that in a more urban environment, that's the same fire size and everything, and across some a daycare or whatever, that that profile changes.

00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:14.160
<v Noah Ryder>And then if you move it into a data center, it's even worse.

00:31:14.799 --> 00:31:15.440
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>That's good.

00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:24.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So, in your talk, uh let's maybe move to what's happening when it goes wrong, or maybe no, maybe uh one more thing about the technology.

00:31:24.480 --> 00:31:25.039
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:34.720
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So the cells that are used in those storage systems, are they like the same as we see in uh e-cigarettes and electric vehicles?

00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:36.319
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Are those different cells?

00:31:36.799 --> 00:31:41.440
<v Noah Ryder>So they often will have uh a similar chemistry.

00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:47.920
<v Noah Ryder>And so, you know, but I it my analogy around that is uh I uh cakes, right?

00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:55.119
<v Noah Ryder>Um, and and that is that you know, everybody's got their own recipe for say a chocolate cake, but they still call it a chocolate cake.

00:31:55.119 --> 00:32:08.559
<v Noah Ryder>And so battery cells are somewhat similar in that you know, most manufacturers will have an LFP cell or an NMC cell or whatever, but um, and they're all siloed into those kind of chemistries, but they they they will be different.

00:32:08.559 --> 00:32:18.400
<v Noah Ryder>Um, so when we look at e-cigarettes or we look at e-bikes and everything else, they may have you know a similar chemistry nomenclature, but the recipes may be different.

00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:21.119
<v Noah Ryder>Uh the specific size obviously is going to be different.

00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:27.119
<v Noah Ryder>If it's got to fit in an e-cigarette, it's got to be small versus you know, you could support a larger cell in an EV.

00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:29.200
<v Noah Ryder>And then finally, the form factor itself.

00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:33.920
<v Noah Ryder>Um so you can have the button batteries or you know, your standard cylindrical or prismatics.

00:32:33.920 --> 00:32:41.680
<v Noah Ryder>So you will see differences across the board from the more consumer-focused type of products versus energy storage.

00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:46.240
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I guess for energy storage, again, is optimization for the space and and capacity.

00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:47.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So probably larger, right?

00:32:47.599 --> 00:32:48.400
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Better fitting.

00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:49.599
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, larger.

00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:52.640
<v Noah Ryder>And so what we've seen is it's kind of crazy.

00:32:52.640 --> 00:32:59.440
<v Noah Ryder>You know, four or five years ago, a you know, nominally a 100 amp hour cell was kind of typical for an energy storage system.

00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:05.279
<v Noah Ryder>A couple years after that, it was uh, you know, 200, and then last year it was 300.

00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:12.480
<v Noah Ryder>We're now seeing 500 amp hour cells in products, and uh a number of companies have just released products that are a thousand amp hours.

00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:13.920
<v Noah Ryder>A thousand looks exciting.

00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:14.400
<v Noah Ryder>Yes.

00:33:14.400 --> 00:33:18.400
<v Noah Ryder>So we've we've got a thousand amp hour products that are that are coming out for sure.

00:33:18.400 --> 00:33:20.880
<v Noah Ryder>So that that that's gonna be a game changer a little bit.

00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:21.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Wow, okay.

00:33:21.759 --> 00:33:27.359
<v Noah Ryder>But from a perspective, chemistry, it's like the same like out cathode just how do you pack it, right?

00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:30.559
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, the basic architecture is gonna be similar.

00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:33.599
<v Noah Ryder>Um, you know, at a conceptual level, it's all the same.

00:33:33.599 --> 00:33:41.039
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, it's just really the details that are gonna change, and you know, you'll see because everybody has patents, so everybody has to do something different.

00:33:41.039 --> 00:33:41.680
<v Noah Ryder>Oh, yeah.

00:33:41.680 --> 00:33:46.079
<v Noah Ryder>So you can't have identical things no matter what, just just because of the patents.

00:33:46.559 --> 00:33:48.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Well, that that that's an interesting driver, yeah.

00:33:48.480 --> 00:33:48.799
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:33:48.799 --> 00:33:53.200
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh anyway, uh let's move into the um uh the cascading failures.

00:33:53.200 --> 00:34:10.000
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh, you had this uh this slide on your talk where you were talking about the things that happen, the events that happen, cell-driven events, uh where you mentioned uh cell monitoring, I assume that's where you detect venting, then immediate or delayed ignition, and then perhaps unit propagation.

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:14.159
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>They were also indicating that we have opportunities at each of these steps along the way.

00:34:14.159 --> 00:34:18.800
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So maybe you can give me an overview of this timeline and then we can talk about the interventions.

00:34:19.039 --> 00:34:19.440
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:34:19.440 --> 00:34:29.519
<v Noah Ryder>So if we start out assuming that the initiation of an incident starts with the cell, which isn't always the case, and we could talk about that maybe a little bit later.

00:34:29.519 --> 00:34:35.840
<v Noah Ryder>But um if if we look at it from that standpoint, then we have kind of a standard event sequence that you kind of ran through.

00:34:35.840 --> 00:34:41.840
<v Noah Ryder>And if everything is operating normally, we're monitoring the cell, the state of health of the system overall.

00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:48.000
<v Noah Ryder>If we start to see anything that's abnormal, then ideally we can correct it as soon as possible, right?

00:34:48.000 --> 00:35:00.159
<v Noah Ryder>So that's why having a VMS system is really critical, getting as much information as you can down to the cell level, because you may be able to uh basically isolate it, you may be able to discharge.

00:35:00.159 --> 00:35:04.159
<v Noah Ryder>Uh, so there may be actions that you can take to do, you know, kind of cut it off.

00:35:04.159 --> 00:35:14.320
<v Noah Ryder>Assuming you can't stop the incident then and the cell continues towards failure, then generally the next step is going to be that the cell is going to vent.

00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:15.679
<v Noah Ryder>What do you mean by that?

00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:17.280
<v Noah Ryder>Well, so exactly that.

00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:17.760
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:35:17.760 --> 00:35:22.079
<v Noah Ryder>So, so, you know, there's a number of different failure mechanisms that are there.

00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:26.000
<v Noah Ryder>It can be contamination, it can be mechanical, it can be overcharge.

00:35:26.000 --> 00:35:38.079
<v Noah Ryder>But in essence, generally what it winds up with is you're going to have an exothermic reaction that is going to start to drive the temperature and the pressure associated with it.

00:35:38.079 --> 00:35:43.920
<v Noah Ryder>And most modern batteries actually have a vent on the top of the cell, if you want to call it that.

00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:47.760
<v Noah Ryder>And so when the pressure starts to build up, it literally opens up.

00:35:47.760 --> 00:35:56.880
<v Noah Ryder>It's basically like a valve releasing and the gases that are formed from um the cell electrolyte and and the breakdown of the separators and whatever happens there.

00:35:56.880 --> 00:35:59.360
<v Noah Ryder>And there's a lot of details that folks can read about.

00:35:59.360 --> 00:36:02.079
<v Noah Ryder>But in essence, at the end, you're going to vent those gases.

00:36:02.639 --> 00:36:04.159
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>They're not necessarily burning yet, right?

00:36:04.239 --> 00:36:16.639
<v Noah Ryder>It can no, and so what I was gonna say is it's so they are they are flammable and it's measured in like the 9540A tests and things like that, where you'll you'll get the flammability range, but it doesn't necessarily auto-ignite.

00:36:16.639 --> 00:36:28.960
<v Noah Ryder>So certain chemistries, uh, certain form factors and things like that may auto-ignite more commonly than others, but uh we have yet to see a chemistry that does not produce a flammable gas.

00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:38.639
<v Noah Ryder>Um even though a lot of folks will be like, ah, sodium ion never ignites, they still produce a fair amount of flammable gas and a good amount of hydrogen in particular.

00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:46.719
<v Noah Ryder>So that gas is venting and it's venting into a volume, and this is where your immediate or delayed ignition could occur, right?

00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:56.639
<v Noah Ryder>So we can either have auto ignition, in which case the the gases are just they're they're burning off, and now you have a sustained flame for however long the vent gas is there and then it could propagate.

00:36:56.639 --> 00:37:14.960
<v Noah Ryder>But if if you don't have an immediate ignition, you may get into a delayed ignition type of event where maybe it's 10 seconds or 30 seconds or a minute or two minutes later, in which case you've got a larger gas volume built up in a confined space, it ignites, and we've had an overpressure or an explosion.

00:37:14.960 --> 00:37:27.440
<v Noah Ryder>And uh, depending on the nature of the event, kind of the the where it would go from there is if we have sustained flaming, either from the immediate ignition or the post-explosion type of event, then we may have a fully involved BES fire.

00:37:27.440 --> 00:37:34.000
<v Noah Ryder>And then the real question gets back to what you asked uh a couple minutes ago, and that was, you know, kind of what's an acceptable loss.

00:37:34.159 --> 00:37:34.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:34.880
<v Noah Ryder>Right?

00:37:34.880 --> 00:37:36.800
<v Noah Ryder>Is it one container or is it more?

00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:44.239
<v Noah Ryder>If we have a developed fire condition following that kind of event sequence, then we get into is this going to propagate or not?

00:37:44.239 --> 00:37:45.920
<v Noah Ryder>And that's kind of start to finish.

00:37:45.920 --> 00:38:01.760
<v Noah Ryder>And generally speaking, at each of those stages, we have the opportunity to do something, either through technology, through better product design, uh, in some cases, it may be manual intervention, but to kind of mitigate the the next steps and maybe stop that sequence.

00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:09.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What one thing that felt really surprising to me in one of the talks, one of the speakers mentioned spark igniters as a safety feature.

00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:10.239
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:38:10.239 --> 00:38:15.840
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh as in making sure that the gas is actually ignite and they don't accumulate and explode.

00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:26.639
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So it's an interesting trade-off about like, would you rather have a bad outcome that you are certain about or a low probability worse outcome?

00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:30.880
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I'm I'm not sure if fire and explosion, you can rank them as worse or better.

00:38:30.880 --> 00:38:33.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I guess it's case by case, but yeah, no, it's a good.

00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:38.719
<v Noah Ryder>So I mean, we've we've seen obviously one major manufacturer, so Tesla has been doing this for years.

00:38:38.719 --> 00:38:40.880
<v Noah Ryder>We we know of others that are pursuing it.

00:38:40.880 --> 00:38:47.840
<v Noah Ryder>And to me, it's a uh it's a really neat concept because to your point, you pretty much know the outcome.

00:38:47.840 --> 00:39:11.519
<v Noah Ryder>And if you are going to write off your box regardless, then I would kind of make the argument that, well, we're not fundamentally changing the outcome, which is replacing the box, but we are ensuring that we keep the incident to something that is manageable because we know what's going to happen.

00:39:11.519 --> 00:39:18.639
<v Noah Ryder>So if you yeah, introduce the sparkers, and obviously it requires you to do the analysis and design it appropriately and everything like that.

00:39:18.639 --> 00:39:26.480
<v Noah Ryder>But if you've done that, then you pretty much guarantee that there's going to be a minimal quantity of gas involved that you would then ignite.

00:39:26.480 --> 00:39:30.079
<v Noah Ryder>And then you have a known event.

00:39:30.079 --> 00:39:33.679
<v Noah Ryder>And if you know what's going to happen, then you can plan for it and you can design around it.

00:39:33.679 --> 00:39:37.119
<v Noah Ryder>It's it's the uncertainty that's really tough.

00:39:37.119 --> 00:39:37.280
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:39:37.440 --> 00:39:43.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, you exchange uh a known uh enemy versus unknown, uh, potentially worse, potentially bad, better.

00:39:44.079 --> 00:39:50.559
<v Noah Ryder>And and I think, you know, from an engineering and insurance standpoint, if you have the knowledge, then you can make informed decisions.

00:39:50.559 --> 00:40:03.679
<v Noah Ryder>So I think an insurance company, even that says, like, I know what my loss is going to be, even if it's bigger than you would hope, if I know it's something, then I can price the premium accordingly and I can still operate.

00:40:03.679 --> 00:40:04.000
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.800
<v Noah Ryder>It's, you know, and uh same thing on the engineering side.

00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:11.280
<v Noah Ryder>If I I know what it is, I I can put in mitigations to make sure it doesn't get beyond that.

00:40:11.599 --> 00:40:13.360
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay, uh let's go this a little bit.

00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:18.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I I you also covered this in your in your presentation, so I'm gonna get this a little deeper.

00:40:18.480 --> 00:40:23.199
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Let's assume you don't have the spark ignite, or perhaps you want to understand if you need one.

00:40:23.199 --> 00:40:32.559
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Let's assume you have a cell going into some sort of event, one cell within the battery, it ventilates combustible flammable gases.

00:40:32.559 --> 00:40:39.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is uh this already an explosion hazard in the unit, or you have to have more involved than one?

00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:41.199
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, great question.

00:40:41.199 --> 00:40:48.880
<v Noah Ryder>And so if you'd asked me that question five years ago, I would have said you absolutely need more than one.

00:40:48.880 --> 00:40:51.760
<v Noah Ryder>Okay, and and you probably need a good number of them.

00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:52.320
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay.

00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:56.800
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Uh 100, 200, uh 500 well hours, now a thousand ampersand.

00:40:56.800 --> 00:40:57.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, exactly.

00:40:57.679 --> 00:40:57.920
<v Noah Ryder>Right.

00:40:57.920 --> 00:40:59.599
<v Noah Ryder>Uh they grew a bit.

00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:08.079
<v Noah Ryder>So yeah, the the the hundred the hundred amp hour cell into now the thousand amp hour cell, that risk has changed significantly.

00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:15.440
<v Noah Ryder>So what we're seeing now is is that you know, the explosion hazard from a single cell is now very real.

00:41:15.679 --> 00:41:16.000
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay.

00:41:16.239 --> 00:41:27.519
<v Noah Ryder>To the extent that before, maybe you had one or two or three cells and you could hit the lower flammability limit within the enclosure, but it'd be pretty tough to get to stoichiometric.

00:41:27.519 --> 00:41:36.639
<v Noah Ryder>Now we're in a situation where you may need for systems that are kind of out there today, you may need maybe two cells to hit stoichiometric.

00:41:36.639 --> 00:41:43.519
<v Noah Ryder>And the ones that are being designed and sold with the, say, the thousand amp hour cells, one cell is sufficient.

00:41:43.519 --> 00:41:48.480
<v Noah Ryder>So all I need is this failure of one really big cell, and I can have a stoichiometric mixture.

00:41:48.639 --> 00:41:54.480
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, we we and we just established a few minutes ago that also the free space is uh is smaller.

00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:00.880
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>You perhaps replace your ventilation with uh liquid cooling, which also changes, you know, the dilutions and everything.

00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:03.840
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So everything uh everything promotes that.

00:42:03.840 --> 00:42:13.199
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And I also saw a lot of talks on the conference about these explosion prevention measures like uh relief valves and stuff like that.

00:42:13.199 --> 00:42:16.159
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Do they have a role in fire spread?

00:42:16.159 --> 00:42:20.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I mean, they look to me like a pathways for jet flames, right?

00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:22.079
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, so great, great.

00:42:22.079 --> 00:42:24.400
<v Noah Ryder>There's there's a there's a lot to dissect there.

00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:29.920
<v Noah Ryder>So NFPA 855 kind of is the governing standard for for stationary energy storage systems.

00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:46.320
<v Noah Ryder>So there's actually a pretty big change that came up, uh, and this is a roundabout way to get to your question, but is in the the newly re released edition, the 2026, that is making a strong push to have mechanically ventilated systems, similar to an NFPA 69 type of system.

00:42:46.800 --> 00:42:50.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>As in uh constantly ventilated or mechanic discharge on event?

00:42:51.440 --> 00:42:51.920
<v Noah Ryder>On event.

00:42:51.920 --> 00:42:53.280
<v Noah Ryder>So upon gas detection.

00:42:53.280 --> 00:43:01.440
<v Noah Ryder>So generally it's gonna, you know, whatever the number of gas sensors are that's needed, trigger it 10% with the goal of uh ventilating the space and keeping it.

00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:02.800
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So like preventing explosion.

00:43:02.960 --> 00:43:07.840
<v Noah Ryder>Yep, explosion prevention, yeah, and keeping it below 25% of the lower flammability limit.

00:43:07.840 --> 00:43:11.920
<v Noah Ryder>Previous to that, a lot of the systems had used the deflagration panels.

00:43:11.920 --> 00:43:17.039
<v Noah Ryder>So it allowed the gas to build up, assumed it ignited, and then you tried to vent the overpressure.

00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:28.960
<v Noah Ryder>So when we look at it from a fire spread standpoint, it really becomes a question of one, which system or approach is used, and then where they're placed.

00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:36.559
<v Noah Ryder>So if you have the panels for mechanically, or or you know, the vents for mechanically ventilated systems, then yes, those are clear pathways out.

00:43:36.559 --> 00:43:42.159
<v Noah Ryder>And if it's on the sides of the unit and may directly impinge on on another one and and so forth.

00:43:42.159 --> 00:43:53.599
<v Noah Ryder>So your you know, total surface area that can be burning and act as a basically a radiant panel, if you will, starts really to come into play when you look at the propagation aspects of it.

00:43:53.599 --> 00:43:59.840
<v Noah Ryder>And this is why there's a lot of work that's looking at, okay, what happens if if there is a flame coming out of those?

00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:03.119
<v Noah Ryder>What happens if the deflagration panels are open and there's flames coming out of there?

00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:06.079
<v Noah Ryder>Because it really changes the exposure significantly.

00:44:06.079 --> 00:44:20.239
<v Noah Ryder>But what we're seeing is that even with mechanically ventilated systems, the partial volume of gas that remains, even once they're active, is still generally sufficient that you need to put deflagration panels in anyways.

00:44:20.239 --> 00:44:23.119
<v Noah Ryder>So you oftentimes wind up with both.

00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:26.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And uh I guess it also matters where you direct the flame.

00:44:26.960 --> 00:44:32.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Okay, when it's when it's explosion deflagration, I I'm happy it just gets relieved.

00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:33.360
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yes.

00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:38.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, but when it's fire, I would perhaps like it to point upwards, not sidewards, maybe.

00:44:38.960 --> 00:44:43.360
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So I guess it's a lot matters where do you place them and how do they look?

00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:49.679
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, so the the challenge is that for both systems, honestly, yeah, ideally you'd put them on the roof and vent upwards.

00:44:49.760 --> 00:44:50.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:55.199
<v Noah Ryder>Unfortunately, from a weather standpoint, uh, that's not necessarily always ideal, right?

00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:58.800
<v Noah Ryder>So these are IP-rated boxes, and we like to keep them that way.

00:44:58.800 --> 00:45:05.920
<v Noah Ryder>They also need to be able to operate during snow, wind, uh, a whole range of different conditions.

00:45:05.920 --> 00:45:09.840
<v Noah Ryder>And so if you have the ventilation on the roof, a lot of times that can pose a challenge.

00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:24.400
<v Noah Ryder>So generally, we'll see the supply and returns for these systems mounted on doors or sidewalls or things like that, which inevitably means they they oftentimes are pointed at targets as opposed to away from them.

00:45:24.559 --> 00:45:25.679
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Well, um, but yeah.

00:45:25.679 --> 00:45:28.719
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I have a brilliant idea how to increase the value per square meter.

00:45:28.719 --> 00:45:29.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's a black and lie.

00:45:29.920 --> 00:45:32.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's it's I I stole it from your presentation.

00:45:32.079 --> 00:45:32.400
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:45:32.400 --> 00:45:34.000
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Are we going to stack them?

00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:34.800
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah.

00:45:34.800 --> 00:45:38.719
<v Noah Ryder>So um, so I think the short answer is that it's inevitable.

00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:40.320
<v Noah Ryder>It's inevitable, yes.

00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:48.400
<v Noah Ryder>Um even if it's a challenge from a safety standpoint, I I think eventually you get to the point where it's going to be required.

00:45:48.400 --> 00:46:04.880
<v Noah Ryder>And honestly, I think there's a lot of work to be done, but I kind of look at it as if I can have uh basically a warehouse stacked 40, 50, 60 feet of highly flammable goods, there's no real reason why we shouldn't be able to do this with batteries.

00:46:04.880 --> 00:46:07.119
<v Noah Ryder>There may be challenges that we need to overcome.

00:46:07.119 --> 00:46:10.960
<v Noah Ryder>And and I think uh Yi's presentation uh from from FM yesterday.

00:46:10.960 --> 00:46:20.320
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, you know, and and he made a really good point, which is how we think about it as well is batteries are they may be a cause, but they're also really just a fuel.

00:46:20.480 --> 00:46:20.719
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:46:20.880 --> 00:46:25.039
<v Noah Ryder>And so, you know, he made the analogy to to rolled paper storage and things like that.

00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:33.840
<v Noah Ryder>And so I think if you kind of change the the thought process from viewing it just as kind of the ignition source and start looking at it as how does this burn?

00:46:33.840 --> 00:46:42.719
<v Noah Ryder>How is it able to propagate, and how can we analyze and understand it, then you can start designing mitigation for it as dense as it is and as tall as it may go.

00:46:42.960 --> 00:47:01.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I brought that point because you know, everything we've discussed so far in this interview, uh, I've tried to build a narrative of goal, reason, solution, you know, like uh what do you want your objective, what you try to achieve, what can it cause, and how we can prevent or mitigate it.

00:47:01.599 --> 00:47:09.280
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And uh a lot of things that made sense so far, as soon as you put them on one on top of each other, you're gonna figure out a different thing.

00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:15.679
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, I mean, I I think the you know, the the fun thing about engineering, at the end of the day, we're problem solvers.

00:47:15.760 --> 00:47:16.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah.

00:47:16.239 --> 00:47:20.159
<v Noah Ryder>And if you give us a problem, we can probably give you a solution to it.

00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:25.920
<v Noah Ryder>It may not be the most cost effective or it may not, you know, happen in a time frame that you're looking at, but we can do that.

00:47:25.920 --> 00:47:39.920
<v Noah Ryder>And so I think, you know, when we look at batteries as well, um, if you move into stacking it, yes, the dynamics change, some of the the things that you could count on when they're basically a two-dimensional problem if you're moving into three dimensions.

00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:45.840
<v Noah Ryder>If you look at it from a holistic viewpoint from fire safety, are there some differences?

00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:46.400
<v Noah Ryder>Yes.

00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:52.320
<v Noah Ryder>But I think fundamentally the hazards that we're trying to protect against are the same as anything else.

00:47:52.320 --> 00:48:03.599
<v Noah Ryder>We've got thermal or fire hazards, we've got overpressure hazards, we've got toxicity hazards, and and you know, that's not really different than other fire problems, if you will.

00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:07.039
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What do you think will be the main driver for future change?

00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:07.840
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>That's the last question.

00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:09.360
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>What will be the main driver?

00:48:09.360 --> 00:48:14.320
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Is it standardization, uh energy density increase, investment?

00:48:14.320 --> 00:48:16.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I would say I would put my money on where the money is.

00:48:17.599 --> 00:48:24.559
<v Noah Ryder>Yeah, I mean, I if I was a a betting man, I'd I'd say, you know, putting your money where the money is is always a good choice.

00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:36.719
<v Noah Ryder>Um so I you know, I I think in this particular case, because of how quickly the industry is evolving, you know, I think it's a little bit of a race between kind of market needs and technology development.

00:48:36.719 --> 00:48:49.920
<v Noah Ryder>But you know, certainly the money is there to build as quickly as possible, as densely as possible, and and uh, you know, short of something drastic happening, I don't really see that changing.

00:48:49.920 --> 00:48:50.719
<v Noah Ryder>So yeah.

00:48:50.960 --> 00:48:59.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Well, no, I think thank you very much, one, for your uh inspiring talk tiers in the conference, and two for sharing this with the audience of the fire science show.

00:48:59.920 --> 00:49:08.320
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And uh well, let's perhaps meet in two, three years and see uh if any of our predictions made sense and how how tall we stacked them on each other.

00:49:08.639 --> 00:49:09.440
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Yeah, sounds great.

00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:10.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thanks very much.

00:49:10.079 --> 00:49:10.719
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I appreciate it.

00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:11.840
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>This was uh this was a great time.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:12.559
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thank you, mate.

00:49:12.559 --> 00:49:13.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thank you very much.

00:49:13.760 --> 00:49:14.960
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And that's it.

00:49:14.960 --> 00:49:19.599
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Those in-person interviews always have a different dynamic than the ones recorded online.

00:49:19.599 --> 00:49:40.719
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>During this one, we've tried to find a silent place at the campus, and we were attacked by at least three different highways, then by birds chirping very loudly, then by construction workers, then by random moving students as we sit down in uh one of the main pathways, people taking photographs after graduation, and in the end by B.

00:49:40.719 --> 00:49:49.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So quite a journey through the campus this interview was, but uh in the end we've made it, and I hope we've uh provided you with some valuable content.

00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:56.400
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Regarding the battery energy storage systems, I think the design is evolving as the needs of the industry are evolving.

00:49:56.400 --> 00:49:59.840
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It's very important to recognize the drivers of change.

00:49:59.840 --> 00:50:12.639
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>People are building them as close as they can to the massive uh power uh receivers like AI centers, people are using them to stabilize grid, where there probably be different drivers for for for growth.

00:50:12.639 --> 00:50:23.920
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>There will be different types of batteries, different chemistry used, depending on if you need to have very high capacity or if you need to release this energy very quickly or take it very quickly.

00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:31.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>So a lot to consider is no one general guidance for battery energy storage system that would solve all your problems.

00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:53.440
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>But I think in this interview we've highlighted different aspects of construction of such a device, and through this those different aspects you will be able to take your engineering judgment and design something that in the end is is fire safe, makes sense for your client, and in general provides the level of safety that is expected from your facility.

00:50:53.440 --> 00:51:02.800
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I hope this interview gave you a lot of ideas on how to design fire safety of those systems, and I'm sure if you reach Dinoa, he will be of some help.

00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:05.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>It was quite a nice person and a very nice interview.

00:51:05.760 --> 00:51:12.239
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Anyway, that would be it for today's Fire Science Show episode from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:15.360
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Next week I'm actually flying for another battery conference.

00:51:15.360 --> 00:51:27.440
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I'm flying to Lisbon in Portugal, where we have the SFPE symposium on battery fire safety where we will be discussing similar matters with like-minded engineers.

00:51:27.440 --> 00:51:32.079
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Again, three days of excellent talks and presentations, cherry-picked speakers.

00:51:32.079 --> 00:51:37.760
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>I am proud to say I'm one of them, so if you are in Lisbon, I hope to see you there.

00:51:37.760 --> 00:51:40.239
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>And that would be it for today's podcast episode.

00:51:40.239 --> 00:51:42.800
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Have a great day and see you here again next Wednesday.

00:51:42.800 --> 00:51:43.119
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Thank you.

00:51:43.119 --> 00:51:43.519
<v Wojciech Węgrzyński>Bye.