Quantitative Fire Risk Assessment of Battery Home Storage Systems in Comparison to General House Fires in Germany and Other Battery Related Fires

Abstract

Battery storage systems are becoming an integral part of the energy transition, as they offer the possibility of bridging time windows in which self-generated renewable energy is not available and they are able to deliver manifold system services to the grid. The most battery storage systems are today found in home storage systems (HSS) and electric vehicles (EV), and their growth continues exponentially. Despite this upside development, there are public concerns about potential fire risks associated with PV home storage systems as well as EV.In this scientific paper, we conduct a quantitative analysis to compare statistics of fires occurring in HSS with fires in photovoltaic (PV) systems, in EV, internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and general house fires. The fires in HSS in Germany were determined using web crawling for the year 2023 because no other data was available. All other probabilities were calculated using researched data. The results show a significantly lower probability of an HSS fire compared to a general house fire. In detail, the findings indicate that the probability of an HSS fire is very low (0.0049 %) and is 50 times lower than for a general house fire. All modern home appliances have a generally low probability of catching fire, this is also true for HSS. If compared to other home appliances, HSS share roughly the same probability of catching fire as tumblers. Compared to the generally low fire probability of an HSS, the probability of PV systems catching fire is a further three times lower. The probability of a traditional ICE vehicle fire (0.089 %) is approximately four times higher than that of an EV fire. The probability of an HSS catching fire is approximately 18 times lower than an ICE catching fire and four times lower vs. an EV.These results provide important insights into the risks and safety aspects of battery storage in the domestic environment and help to make informed decisions about the integration of renewable energy systems.

Keywords: home storage systems, fire probability, domestic fires, vehicle fires, battery storage, fire safety measures