Moss Landing battery plant catches fire for fifth time in five years; LG cells, safety gaps flagged

A spate of recent fires has once again raised alarms over the safety of energy storage systems.

On September 18, local time, the Moss Landing energy storage plant in Monterey County, California—once the world’s largest lithium-ion battery storage facility—caught fire again. This marks at least the fifth fire at the site since it began operations five years ago.

Notably, the latest incident did not occur during normal operation of a new system. Instead, it originated in a section of damaged batteries that had remained uncleared since a catastrophic fire in 2025. According to local fire authorities, the fire was sparked by spontaneous high-temperature smoldering of approximately 1,200 battery modules that were still electrically charged and inaccessible inside the damaged structure.

Plant Background and History

Located about 124 kilometers south of San Francisco, the Moss Landing facility was built on the site of a decommissioned gas-fired power plant owned by PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric Company). It is operated by U.S.-listed Vistra Energy, with batteries supplied by South Korea’s LG Energy Solution. The plant has a total capacity of 750 MW / 3,000 MWh and is considered a critical asset for decarbonization and peak load balancing in California’s power grid.

The plant’s fire history follows a clear downward trajectory:

• September 4, 2021: A fault detection system incorrectly responded to air conditioning overheating, triggering sprinklers that sprayed battery racks, causing thermal runaway and a fire. Seven percent of battery modules were damaged, and the project was subsequently shut down.
• February 13, 2022: A similar incident occurred, with approximately 10 battery racks destroyed.
• January 16, 2025: A fire broke out in Phase I of the facility due to a malfunction in the internal fire suppression system, destroying about 40% of the storage batteries. Approximately 1,500 nearby residents were evacuated. This was one of the most severe fires in the history of the energy storage industry.
• February 18, 2025: Another fire occurred at the same location.
• September 18, 2026: The latest fire reignited in the same damaged area, more than a year after the previous incident.

The escalating damage has led Vistra Energy to record a full asset impairment charge for the facility.

A Broader Pattern of Failures

Moss Landing is not an isolated case. The repeated fires at what was once the world’s largest storage plant highlight the underestimated safety risks of large-scale lithium-ion battery storage amid rapid expansion—a challenge the entire industry must address.

Shortly after the Moss Landing fire, another incident was reported in South Korea. On September 21, local time, a fire broke out in an energy storage system at the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) Power Research Institute campus. An outdoor container-type storage facility caught fire, producing large amounts of smoke, and the flames quickly spread to nearby battery equipment. On-site inspections confirmed that 28 lithium-ion battery packs across two racks were completely destroyed.

The following day, on September 22, local time, a fire occurred at a storage facility operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) in the city of La Verne. The facility was an outdoor container-type lithium-ion battery storage system. The fire triggered thermal runaway and a small explosion, releasing toxic fumes and prompting large-scale evacuations and shelter-in-place orders.

All three incidents share a common feature: they were not caused by construction errors or extreme weather, pointing instead to a systemic lack of safety in energy storage.

Industry Expert Warns of Systemic Risks

“Recent overseas energy storage safety incidents serve as important warnings and lessons for the domestic industry. Energy storage safety knows no borders. The safety risks of large-scale lithium-ion battery storage projects need to be reassessed amid rapid industry expansion,” said Tian Qingjun, a senior expert in the energy storage field and Senior Vice President at Envision Group.

“China, as the world’s largest lithium battery producer and energy storage application market, is seeing a continuous increase in the scale and number of GW-level storage projects. It now faces a critical test: transitioning from ‘scale leadership’ to ‘safety leadership,’” Tian told The Paper.

Data on Global Incidents

Public data shows that in the first half of 2026, at least 15 energy storage-related fires and explosions were reported globally, covering grid-side power stations, commercial and industrial storage, residential equipment, data centers, and logistics transport. Over a longer statistical period, from 2011 to 2025, more than 160 electrochemical energy storage safety incidents were recorded worldwide, involving both NMC and LFP battery chemistries. Approximately 80% of these incidents occurred during normal plant operation.

Despite continuous updates to industry safety standards and the introduction of new regulations, fires, explosions, and equipment failures continue to occur frequently. The deep-seated contradiction of “prioritizing expansion over safety” in the energy storage industry remains evident.

China’s Structural Challenges

“The biggest hidden danger in China’s energy storage industry today is not a lack of technological iteration, but the systemic safety risks buried by years of extensive, low-quality development,” Tian said.

In his view, a series of interconnected and mutually amplifying industry problems are undermining the safety baseline of energy storage: low-price competition, assembly-line OEM production, blind pursuit of larger battery cells, low-quality delivery, and disorderly capacity expansion.

“Although China holds more than 80% of the global market share in energy storage and overseas orders are growing explosively, the structural weakness of ‘iteration outpacing technological accumulation, and delivery outpacing safety verification’ cannot be ignored,” Tian warned. “Energy storage is a capital-intensive, long-cycle infrastructure. The model of hasty iteration and rushed delivery fundamentally contradicts the nature of the industry.”

Path Forward: From Scale to Safety

The energy storage industry is now undergoing a full-scale reshuffle, with market resources increasingly concentrating on leading companies that prioritize technology, quality, and value.

Tian emphasized that energy storage safety is not a single-point technical issue but a systematic challenge spanning the entire lifecycle. A failure at any stage can trigger a chain of risks. The industry must abandon the old path of extensive expansion and low-price competition, and instead build a closed-loop safety system across the entire value chain to fundamentally resolve safety risks.

According to Tian, Envision is working with industry associations to develop a three-dimensional scientific evaluation system for energy storage, centered on safety reliability, asset health, and operational efficiency. He further called for stricter safety standards for storage stations, including the incorporation of internationally recognized hardcore standards such as large-scale fire testing into China’s domestic market access requirements. Such rigid thresholds would help eliminate low-end capacity and push the industry back toward a safety-first, value-driven approach.

“This is not only a necessary choice for companies to build competitive barriers, but also the only path for China’s energy storage industry to move from scale leadership to safety leadership, from product export to standard export, and from low-price competition to value co-creation,” Tian concluded.