We were pleased to welcome Laurie Florence, Principal Engineer for Stationary & Motive Batteries, ESS and Fuel Cells for UL, who presented on “Battery Energy Storage Systems – The State of Safety”.

Battery energy storage systems have gone from being a demo project or novelty addition to support renewable energy to a necessity for renewable energy installations and other areas of support for the grid.  Battery energy storage systems are also being installed with increasing frequency in residential applications to support solar systems.  Many of these systems rely upon lithium ion batteries as their battery storage technology.  What is being done to address the safety of these devices, whether they are for utility, commercial/industrial or residential application?  UL has been in the forefront of ensuring battery energy storage safety. During this presentation, Laurie Florence will provide an overview of the progress made with codes and standards including UL 9540, Standard for Energy Storage Systems and Equipment and UL 9540A, Test Method for Evaluating Thermal Runaway Fire Propagation in Battery Energy Storage Systems, the NFPA 855, NFPA 70. NFPA 1 and ICC IFC codes, and challenges with testing of these systems.

Laurie Florence is a UL Corporate Fellow and UL’s Principal Engineer for stationary/motive batteries and ESS.  Laurie has over 30 years of experience in product safety and standards development. She represents UL on a variety of UL standards technical panels including 1973/1989, 1974, 2580/2271, 810/810A/810B, 2267 and 9540/9540A – as well as other industry standards and battery committees across ANSI, SAE, ISO, IEC, IECEE, CSA, and NFPA.  Laurie is also the chair of IEC SC21A, convener for IEC SC21A WG 5  and a member of IEC TC 120.

The presentation provided a good understanding of standards and code that impact energy storage and the steps being taken to ensure safety.