ORR Protection Lithium-Ion Battery Q&A: Battery Challenges

Join ORR Protection experts Lee Kaiser and Aaron Wille as they discuss battery safety and fire suppression systems for battery energy storage systems, like those found in data centers. In this part of the series, our experts will explore specific challenges faced with using Lithium-Ion batteries by answering the following questions:
1. What are some of the biggest challenges of data centers moving from Lead-acid to Lithium-Ion battery storage?
2. In data center environments with distributed UPS, how is the fire protection and suppression design affected and how is that affected by NFPA 855 requirements?
3. How do we dispose of batteries that have gone through thermal runaway?

[@ScottLang-jq3tz]

It seems to me that the 20 kWh limit for li-ion batteries has a built-in assumption that all of those cells are in somewhat close proximity. I'm not sure should apply when you have small numbers of cell that may be fairly widely distributed throughout the fire area. After all, the opportunity for propagation will be reduced over a situation where you have one rack of 20 kWh.

[@ORRProtection]

Thanks for adding that insight Scott!