Electricity industry veteran Richard Healey believes there is a 62 per cent chance of fire from the proposed Naseby solar farm over the project life of the project.

After speaking at a recent public meeting to concerned residents in the Maniototo, Richard also contacted The Central App with more information about the risks of the proposal by Helios.

Public submissions on Helios’ resource consent application for the solar farm closed last week and the project was gaining national attention.

However potential fire risk was not the biggest problem but the toxic residues from when the lithium batteries ignite, Richard said.

Helios plans to have 32 shipping containers of battery storage housed onsite, along with the 550,810 solar panels across a 660ha site.

The application sought resource consent to construct, operate and maintain an approximately 300MWac photovoltaic solar farm, and associated infrastructure including battery energy storage, substation and transmission line infrastructure for renewable electricity

generation.

Affected landowner Rose Voice was one of the residents concerned about many of the potential impacts on the environment, water supply and land values. She was currently organising a national petition against solar farms.

Richard said there had already been four major fires in utility scale battery storage facilities in Australia, and estimated the risk at Naseby to be 2.5 per cent each year.

“That’s a 25 per cent chance in the first ten years, a 62 per cent chance of fire over the projected life of the project. 

‘’That's using the data from an impeccable source - that is bound to underestimate the true risk because they will have undoubtedly missed the reporting of some fires worldwide.”

Richard said the risk was incredibly well known within the industry, “but a risk that is not addressed at all in Helios's application beyond a mention that they will talk to FENZ. [Fire and emergency New Zealand]. That's not likely to be a fruitful discussion because the advice

from the manufacturers to fire fighters is not to attempt to extinguish a fire."

He said it was pretty easy to find reports on fires in Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) units that had required widespread and long lasting evacuations of the surrounding areas. 

“That's because the vapour generated by thermal runaway in a BESS unit contains huge quantities of highly toxic compounds. Depending on the state of charge, a BESS battery the size of only one of the 32 units proposed here can generate between 600kg and 2400kg

of highly toxic hydrogen fluoride gas.”

Richard also questioned Helio’s claims that its proposal will make a "meaningful and rapid" contribution to New Zealand's goal of having 100% renewable electricity.

“The vast bulk of the electrical load in New Zealand is in the North Island. The HVDC link is used, almost exclusively, to transfer energy North.”

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