California’s Largest Battery Storage Shut Down by Smoke, Again

The company took offline its 100-megawatt Moss Landing battery facility after a safety system activated late on Sunday, according to a statement. It’s the second incident at the plant in less than six months.

In September, Vistra closed the plant’s 300-megawatt facility after some battery modules overheated. An investigation found that smoke from a failed bearing in an air-handling unit in the building triggered a heat suppression system to improperly spray water on battery racks, causing damage and some to overheat, according to a statement from Vistra last month.

Early findings from the most recent incident indicate that water hoses leaked and some batteries shorted, causing smoke in the building, similar to what was observed with the prior issue, Vistra said.

The cause of the latest outage is under investigation, the company said. No injuries were reported.

Vistra said it will now pause bringing its 300-megawatt facility back online because of the latest issues at the plant, located nearly 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of San Francisco.

Last month, Vistra announced plans to nearly double the capacity of its Moss Landing energy storage site by adding 350 megawatts in an agreement with PG&E Corp. The expansion is expected to be completed by June 2023.