A 300-megawatt lithium-battery installation caught fire in January at Vistra’s Moss Landing energy storage facility near Santa Cruz, California.
The fire, which burned for days, closed schools in the surrounding area and forced the evacuation of about 1,500 people. Many of them have since reported health issues, according to national media reports.
Members of the American Clean Power Association said the overall track record for utility-scale lithium-ion battery storage is impressive, given a 25,000% increase in installed capacity since 2018 and only 20 fire-related incidents in the last decade.
Others in the data center industry saw a rather graphic preview of what can happen with lithium batteries arrayed in a concentrated area. It’s called thermal runaway. And even if rare, it becomes ugly quickly.
Lithium batteries burn hot and fast at temperatures as high as 5,000 degrees, making them difficult to extinguish.
As they burn, they also emit a plume of extremely toxic gasses like hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde and many others.
Water and fire extinguishers aren’t always effective at containing the flames, and firefighters have needed new training to deal with lithium battery fires.
That’s prompted many in the data center industry to begin exploring new alternatives for lithium batteries, including a new data center that’s locating in southwest Wyoming.
Prometheus Hyperscale will be a 1.2-Gigawatt facility near Evanston. It has announced plans to work with startup company, XL Batteries, on pioneering a new concept for battery storage.
The new batteries, which are experimental at this stage, will not be the only battery storage system in use at the developing facility, according to Prometheus Senior Energy Advisor Adam Mirick.
“This is one of several battery technologies we’re going to be using,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “We think it’s going to be a winner, but it’s part of a balanced breakfast approach, where we’re being thoughtful about it, because it isn’t proven at commercial scale.”
Game-Changer For Battery Storage
Investing in the product is one way to help move other solutions forward and be part of something that could be a game changer for battery storage, Mirick said.
“Part of our ambition for the site was a more sustainable solution, but also one that doesn’t have thermal runaway risk,” Mirick said. “The thermal runaway risk is a big deal. We don’t want the fire risk.”
So far, performance tests for the new battery solution are promising, Mirick said.
“The test equipment is actually comparable to, or even better than, lithium,” he said. “But the real end game here with this technology, because it is long duration, is it could someday replace diesel or natural gas backup generation.”
Prometheus wants to use solar power as a short-term backup, as well as a buffer for times when demand ticks up, rather than diesel or natural gas backup generation.
“If (XL Batteries) can actually get this to work well enough and the economics look good, it’s quite compelling to have on site for long duration energy storage that doesn’t require loads of tanker trucks to resupply you, in the case of diesel, or have supply risks on a gas pipeline in the case of gas,” Mirick said.
In tests, the XL Batteries concept has also avoided degradation problems that typical lithium batteries have.
“Over time, lithium batters get kind of tired, and they don’t do as well,” Mirick said. ‘Kind of like what you’ve probably seen with your cellphone.”
Prometheus Moving Forward In Other Ways, Too
Prometheus has also moved forward with some site work, but its main effort now is the search for a tenant.
“Right now, we’re in deep conversations with a number of potential tenants,” he said. “And the reason we wait is that everyone is a little bit persnickety in terms of they have different needs.
“Maybe they’re deploying different chips. We need to make sure that we’re building to suit.”
In the initial stages, Prometheus plans to start out with 150 megawatts of computing power up by mid 2027. After that, it would begin to ramp up rapidly, reaching 1.2 gigawatts by the end of 2029.
“There’s a chance it could be faster than that,” Mirick said.
The exact timeline, as well as power mix, will depend on details related to an individual tenant’s needs.
“This really is a multi-state competition right now,” Mirick said. “We’re competing against Texas, we’re competing against Louisiana, we’re competing against Virginia and trying to say, ‘Hey, come to Wyoming.’”
Support from Wyoming stakeholders in that competition has been great so far, he added.
“I like the way this deal is highlighting that Wyoming can innovate,” he said. “And (the new batteries) are kind of the second innovative deal we’ve announced in two weeks.”
Data centers are in growth mode right now, thanks to artificial intelligence. Success in Evanston could help demonstrate that Wyoming is an attractive place for data centers outside of just Cheyenne, Myrick said.
“Wyoming exports 15 times more energy than it consumes,” he said. “So, you think about where would you site massive scale data centers and (in Wyoming) you have the land, you have the fiber, you have the energy, you have a business-friendly state with elected officials and otherwise who are very welcoming.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
