Knowledge middle fires elevate considerations about lithium-ion batteries

Fireplace is guilty for a small however important choice of data-center outages together with a March 28 hearth that led to critical injury to a knowledge middle in France, and an research of world incidents highlights ongoing considerations concerning the protection of lithium-ion batteries and their chance of combustion.

The usage of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries in records facilities is rising. Now usually utilized in uninterruptible energy provides, they’re anticipated to account for 38.5% of the data-center battery marketplace via 2025, up from 15% in 2020, consistent with consulting company Frost & Sullivan.

Adoption is pushed via Li-ion batteries’ smaller footprint, more effective repairs, and longer lifespan in comparison to lead-acid batteries. As well as, Li-ion calories garage is a key part in renewable calories distribution, consistent with Uptime Institute, which provides resiliency services and products, recommendation on construction and working records facilities, and certification services and products.

Then again, Li-ion batteries provide a better hearth chance than valve-regulated lead-acid batteries, Uptime warns.

The company present in its annual research of data-center reliability that 7% of outages had been led to via fires. (Connectivity issues—which come with problems with fiber, community tool, and configuration—are probably the most greatest reasons, accountable for 29% of publicly reported outages.)

“We discover, each and every time we do those surveys, hearth doesn’t cross away,” stated Andy Lawrence, government director of study at Uptime, in a convention name to speak about the company’s new outage analysis.

Fireplace coverage has at all times been a problem in relation to batteries and thermal runaway, when warmth builds up in a battery sooner than it may be dissipated. Over the years, the trade has gotten a greater working out of what reasons thermal runaway in lead-acid batteries and advanced clever charging circuits that reinforce detection and avert issues, stated Chris Brown, leader technical officer at Uptime.

“We discovered so much over the years with lead-acid batteries. Now, lithium ion comes onto the scene, and it’s a complete other animal,” Brown stated.

Weigh the professionals and cons of deploying Li-ion batteries.

Li-ion batteries burn warmer than lead-acid batteries, and if the battery-containment unit is broken, it doesn’t react neatly with oxygen or water, Brown stated. “We’re discovering that we don’t utterly, actually perceive all of the failure modes of lithium-ion batteries nowadays, and the charging circuits don’t seem to be ready to deal with all of them,” he stated.

As with every battery, as soon as a Li-ion battery begins to burn, it is laborious to position out. “It’s going to burn till it expends all of its calories, and simply dumping water on it doesn’t actually assist. It helps to keep it from spreading, in all probability, nevertheless it doesn’t assist,” Brown stated. “And the truth that it burns a lot warmer than lead-acid batteries [means] it’s going to do much more injury. It’s going to burn so much longer as it shops much more calories. And in order that’s the issue we’re seeing with lithium-ion all over.”

In reaction, native government and regulatory businesses are enacting necessities associated with the garage of Li-ion batteries.

Brown recommends data-center operators pay shut consideration to facility design if Li-ion batteries are a part of the plan.

“In case you are taking a look at the use of lithium-ion batteries, then certainly take a look at segregating them into their very own battery room,” he stated. A battery room will have to have a minimum of a few fire-rated partitions and ceilings, and operators will have to imagine the use of a foam fire-suppression gadget “as a result of a minimum of foam will smother the hearth and assist to extinguish it, while water is solely going to stay it from spreading.”

When requested about using allotted batteries, versus a centralized UPS gadget with banks of batteries, Brown advises warning.

Prior to now, a standard means was once to take away each and every form of flamable unit from the info corridor itself. Now, with allotted batteries being put in in racks and rack-mounted UPSes, data-center operators need to weigh the energy-efficiency features of allotted Li-ion batteries towards the hearth dangers, Brown says.

“The nice factor is if it does catch hearth, those are a lot smaller batteries, so that you could possibly include it to a couple of racks. Then again, there’s going to be smoke, and after all, any racks in that neighborhood are going to suck a few of that particles into them. And whilst it would possibly not reason screw ups these days, that’s going to result in untimely screw ups sooner or later.”

Folks wish to cross into it with eyes extensive open, carry out a price—receive advantages research, and do what’s perfect for them, Brown says. “However my advice is that you simply get batteries out of the info corridor. That’s probably the most dependable, maximum resilient factor you’ll do.”

Contemporary data-center fires blamed on Li-ion batteries

Lawrence referred to circumstances during which Li-ion batteries are suspected to be the reason for data-center fires.

Probably the most infamous incidents happened in early 2021, when the most important cloud supplier based totally in Europe, OVHcloud, suffered a catastrophic hearth that destroyed one in every of its records facilities in Strasbourg and broken a neighboring one.

A Maxnod records middle in France suffered a devasting hearth on March 28, 2023, and “we consider it’s led to via lithium-ion battery hearth,” Lawrence stated.

A lithium-ion battery hearth may be the reported reason for a significant hearth on Oct. 15, 2022, at a South Korea colocation facility owned via SK Crew and operated via its C&C subsidiary. The hearth on the SK C&C records middle reportedly began in a battery room and affected the operations of  primary South Korea tech corporations.

“Maximum of South Korea suffered an eight-hour provider disruption. CEOs resigned. Govt investigations and more than one class-action complaints had been initiated,” Uptime stated.

The SK C&C incident took tens of hundreds of servers offline, together with the IT infrastructure working South Korea’s most well liked messaging and unmarried sign-on platform, KakaoTalk, wrote Daniel Bizo, analysis director at Uptime, in a weblog publish.

“The outage disrupted its built-in cell fee gadget, shipping app, gaming platform and tune provider—all of which can be utilized by hundreds of thousands,” Bizo wrote. “The outage additionally affected home cloud massive Naver (the ‘Google of South Korea’) which reported disruption to its on-line seek, buying groceries, media and running a blog services and products.”

Kakao attributed the reason for the hearth to the Li-ion batteries deployed on the facility; SK Crew has no longer disclosed its professional findings.