By Joe Filla, Solutions Designer
Guidelines for the safe use of lithium-ion batteries are helpful when the devices concerned are for personal use like tools, power cells or e-bikes.
In industrial settings where the scale can increase by orders of magnitude these guidelines fall short and additional safety measures may be necessary.
Facilities like factories and data centers that are required to maintain operations 24/7 can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars to downtime and are heavily incentivized to invest in power backup systems.
In the past these systems would rely on diesel generators and many still do, but uninterrupted power systems (UPS) increasingly rely on battery energy storage systems (BESS) to make up the difference when power is lost.
Battery Energy Storage Systems
BESS installations are made up of massive banks of lithium-ion batteries and are used to maintain power when external sources fail.
Some facilities use BESS installations to shore up power while generators kick on but there are others that rely on them entirely.
When systems like these fail the massive facilities that rely on them, the results can be catastrophic.
Fires from failures in BESS installations have burned entire campuses to the ground, like this data center in France that resulted $105 million in losses.
Lithium-Ion Risks
As codes catch up to these risks, increasingly advanced fire detection technology is being developed to combat them.
Lithium-ion batteries emit trace gases in the early stages of failure before they reach thermal runaway, detecting these early warning signs can be critical in catching a thermal event before it becomes a devastating fire.
These gases are also toxic and can be dangerous especially when emitted in confined spaces like battery rooms.
Unfortunately, in these early stages the gases being emitted are not concentrating enough for conventional gas monitors to detect. In fact, they can be low enough that they must be measured in parts per million, or even parts per billion, according to the International Fire and Safety Journal.
One solution is the Li-Ion Tamer Gas Sensor.
Li-Ion Tamer Gas Sensors
Acquired by Honeywell in 2025, the sensors are specialized to detect the compounds that are released from lithium-ion batteries during off-gassing. These sensors can provide up to 30 minutes of warning before a battery fails and reaches thermal runaway.
Those 30 minutes are critical and can mean the difference between a small safety incident, and the loss of an entire facility.
Whether you are looking for fire detection in a commercial setting, advanced fire and life safety systems for complex facilities or just information on how to keep your people and your facility safe, Tech Electronics has the experience and knowledge necessary to recommend the solutions you need.
For more information on what the latest in fire and life safety technology can do for you, schedule a consultation.
