Large-scale fire testing (LSFT) of battery energy storage systems will become a mandatory requirement

Today, large-scale fire testing (LSFT) has been widely adopted as one of the best practices for safety verification of battery energy storage systems. At present, more than a dozen industry manufacturers have announced the completion of the test and announced the results, and more enterprises are expected to follow up in the future. The test will be included in the 2026 version of the NFPA 855 standard and become mandatory.

The test is carried out in accordance with the technical specification agreement (CSA TS-800:24) established by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and is a companion test to the UL9540A standard for thermal runaway testing at the cell level. UL9540A standards themselves continue to evolve, but their limitations have become apparent over time. Many local regulators in the United States require battery energy storage systems to comply with NFPA 855 standards (including large-scale fire testing starting this year). The standard is also a reference for battery energy storage projects in other countries and regions around the world, and is increasingly valued by insurance companies and financial institutions.

Ideally, the temperature management, fire detection and suppression systems of a battery energy storage system should be able to prevent a fire from starting or spreading. Through large-scale fire testing (LSFT), the battery energy storage system provider aims to prove that even if a fire occurs, it will not repeat the situation that multiple energy storage units catch fire and burn for several days in the Moss Landing battery energy storage system in California or the Gateway battery energy storage project. The large-scale fire test (LSFT) is designed to ensure that any future fire is similar to the case of the Thurrock battery storage project in the UK, where only one energy storage unit caught fire during construction, and through close monitoring and effective control, the fire does not pose a risk to the surrounding community.

With the rapid development and application popularization of the new energy storage industry, the fire safety risk of the energy storage system has become the core bottleneck restricting the large-scale and high-quality development of the industry. Large-scale fire test (LSFT) is about to become a mandatory requirement. It is the systematic response to safety pain points at the industry and regulatory levels that aims to build a strong security line from the source and break the shackles of development. For Shengsida, which is engaged in energy storage and fire protection, the popularization of LSFT and the upgrading of NFPA 855 standards are not only a compliance challenge, but also a historical opportunity to transform from "passive defense" to "active safety. This means that our role is no longer limited to the last line of defense after the accident, but to intervene in the overall design of the energy storage system. Only through advanced fire protection technology, the thermal runaway is limited to the smallest unit, which proves that even if extreme circumstances occur, the fire will not evolve into a catastrophic runaway spread, and can successfully pass the rigorous test.

In the final analysis, our core value lies in building a reliable "security firewall" for the entire trillion-level new energy industry ". In the future, fire-fighting solutions that can be verified by large-scale fire tests will become the "standard" and "trump card" for the competition of energy storage systems at sea, helping the global energy transition to accelerate on a safer track.