In the construction of new-type power systems, electrochemical energy storage bears the core mission of peak shaving, frequency regulation, capacity reserve, and renewable energy accommodation. It is an indispensable key infrastructure for the energy transition. As domestic energy storage installed capacity continues to grow rapidly, the industry is shifting from a pursuit of scale expansion to a new stage of high-quality development that equally prioritizes safety and performance. Fire and explosion accidents caused by lithium battery thermal runaway have become a core pain point constraining industry development.
On April 1, 2026, the new edition of the Design Standard for Electrochemical Energy Storage Stations officially took effect, substantially strengthening requirements for early thermal runaway warning, gas monitoring, and fire protection linkage. Meanwhile, the new national standard General Technical Requirements for Fire Monitoring and Early Warning Systems of Electrochemical Energy Storage Stations was implemented on September 1. Early gas monitoring and warning have been elevated from an optional configuration to a mandatory requirement for power stations. Energy storage safety has entered a window of standardized and normalized transformation.
Hidden Gas Safety Hazards of Energy Storage Thermal Runaway
Lithium battery thermal runaway is a chain-type autocatalytic irreversible chemical reaction. Its overall evolution is highly concealed, spreads rapidly, and carries high explosion risk, making on-site handling extremely difficult. The main hazards are concentrated in the following four aspects:
Traditional monitoring methods have a time lag: When a battery cell experiences internal abnormalities such as micro-short circuits, overheating, or aging, temperature, voltage, and smoke have not yet changed significantly. However, the electrolyte has already decomposed, releasing flammable and toxic characteristic gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds. Gas signals appear far earlier than temperature rise, smoke, or open flame. Relying solely on BMS, temperature sensors, and smoke detectors makes it very difficult to capture early-stage risks at the embryonic stage.
Rapid gas accumulation forms explosive conditions: Energy storage prefabricated cabins and battery cabinets are enclosed, narrow spaces with limited ventilation. Various combustible gases released by batteries easily accumulate rapidly inside the cabin, reaching explosive limits in a short time. Once they encounter electrical sparks or static electricity, flash explosions, reignition, and cascading fires can occur, leading to severe consequences including cabin destruction, power station shutdown, and casualties.
Existing projects have shortcomings in monitoring system configuration: A large number of already-operational energy storage projects mainly rely on temperature, BMS voltage, and smoke detectors for safety monitoring. This type of monitoring is a post-event alarm, often triggering only after risks have developed to the middle or late stages, missing the golden response window.
Non-standard application of gas monitoring equipment: Some projects have rough equipment selection, unreasonable point layout, and insufficient on-site anti-interference performance, easily producing false alarms, missed alarms, and equipment failure. Even when gas monitoring devices are installed, they cannot effectively identify early hazards, rendering the entire warning system useless.
Four Stages of Battery Thermal Runaway
01 Early Warning Stage (Golden Response Period): The battery experiences internal micro-short circuits and slight overheating, first releasing low-concentration carbon monoxide. At this point, there is no smoke, no open flame, and no significant temperature rise. Traditional temperature and smoke detection equipment struggles to identify such early risk signals.
02 Development Stage: Carbon monoxide concentration continues to climb, accompanied by hydrogen evolution. The battery begins to swell, and body temperature gradually rises. Risk continues to intensify.
03 Critical Danger Stage: Large amounts of combustible characteristic gases accumulate inside the cabin. Cabin pressure rises. The system is one step away from deflagration.
04 Deflagration and Fire Stage: Instant flash explosion and fire occur, triggering cascading thermal runaway fires and causing major safety accidents.
Core Conclusion
Carbon monoxide is the most important early warning indicator of energy storage battery thermal runaway, capable of capturing risk signals minutes to over ten minutes earlier than open flame or smoke.
Four Major Challenges in Energy Storage Gas Monitoring
Based on extensive experience in energy storage projects, current energy storage gas safety monitoring generally faces four common industry challenges that directly constrain the effectiveness of safety prevention systems:
1. Strong environmental interference, frequent false and missed alarms: Inside energy storage cabins, high temperature, high humidity, electrolyte vapor corrosion, and severe electromagnetic interference cause ordinary sensors to drift, become poisoned, or age. They cannot accurately distinguish normal operating conditions from abnormal gas evolution risks.
2. Single warning dimension, insufficient predictive capability: Single-gas monitoring cannot adapt to complex thermal runaway conditions and struggles to accurately differentiate minor battery anomalies from high-risk thermal runaway.
3. Equipment lifespan mismatch, poor long-term reliability: Energy storage stations are designed for a 15–20 year lifespan, while conventional sensors have short lifespans and cumbersome maintenance. Later equipment failures go unnoticed, creating safety blind spots.
4. Lack of system linkage, broken prevention and control loop: Most monitoring devices only achieve local alarms and cannot link with ventilation, fire protection, or BMS systems. After a warning is issued, there is no automatic response action, missing the optimal risk control window.
CCEsafety: Building a Pre-Emptive Safety Barrier with Precise Perception
As a provider of gas environmental safety products and system solutions, and a national specialized and sophisticated “Little Giant” enterprise, CCEsafety precisely aligns with the latest energy storage safety standards. For full scenarios including prefabricated cabins, cabinet-type energy storage, and commercial and industrial energy storage, CCEsafety has created an integrated thermal runaway gas safety solution featuring front-end precise perception, local linkage control, and cloud-based intelligent supervision. The solution uses energy storage-specific gas detectors as the core perception carrier, solving the micro-detection challenges of characteristic gases such as hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and VOC in energy storage cabins in one stop, building a standardized safety prevention system that is full-time, high-precision, blind-spot-free, and linkage-capable.
1. Gas Detectors: Fortifying the First Line of Front-End Perception
Gas detectors are the “nerve endings” of energy storage thermal runaway warning. Equipment performance directly determines the reliability of the entire safety system. CCEsafety gas detectors use anti-poisoning, high-stability premium sensor modules, with dedicated hardware optimization for harsh conditions such as high humidity, corrosion, and strong electromagnetic interference in energy storage cabins. They feature multiple protection capabilities including explosion-proof, dust-proof, waterproof, corrosion-proof, and anti-interference, adapting to all types of air-cooled and liquid-cooled energy storage systems. The equipment focuses on core characteristic gases of energy storage thermal runaway, monitoring multiple parameters including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, VOC, temperature, and humidity in real time, and intelligently assessing risks through multi-data fusion algorithms. With scientific point layout design, it precisely covers the entire space of battery cabinets and prefabricated cabins, capturing early trace gas evolution signals from battery cells, greatly advancing thermal runaway warning time, achieving “no fire yet, warning first, early blocking.”
2. Gas Alarm Controllers: Achieving Closed-Loop Risk Response
CCEsafety gas alarm controllers serve as the on-site safety control hub, aggregating real-time data from all detectors and supporting tiered threshold settings to precisely distinguish between warning and alarm risk levels. Once abnormal gas concentration exceedance is detected, the system immediately triggers audible and visual alarms, simultaneously outputs linkage signals, automatically starts forced ventilation, and closes valves, blocking thermal spread at the source and preventing deflagration risks. This transforms the traditional passive prevention model of “alarm only, no response.”
3. Smart Cloud Platform: Achieving Digital Full-Area Supervision
Based on IoT and big data technologies, CCEsafety has built an energy storage safety smart cloud platform, achieving networked, digital, and visual unified management of all detection equipment across the station. The platform aggregates real-time gas concentration data, equipment operating status, and alarm and fault records from each cabin and cabinet, supporting 24-hour uninterrupted duty. When anomalies occur, warning information is pushed through multiple channels including on-site audible and visual alarms, SMS, and cloud pop-ups, enabling maintenance personnel to grasp on-site risks remotely and quickly. It also supports data interoperability, automatic record retention, and traceable risk investigation, adapting to the cluster-based and standardized safety management needs of large energy storage stations.
Safety is the prerequisite, the bottom line, and the lifeline of the sustainable development of the energy storage industry. With technological innovation as its core and national standards as its guideline, CCEsafety will continue to optimize monitoring hardware, iterate intelligent algorithms, and improve overall solutions. We are committed to solving the thermal runaway safety challenges of energy storage and building a solid technical barrier for the construction of new-type power systems and the safe development of the energy storage industry.
