LG New Energy recalls energy storage batteries again, with estimated losses of US$350 million

After several battery fire accidents, LG EnergySolution, LG Chem's battery business, announced the recall of battery energy storage system (ESS) batteries manufactured between April 2017 and September 2018, providing free replacement services, and an estimated loss of 350 million U.S. dollars . LGEnergySolution pointed out that the battery electrodes manufactured earlier have some problems, which may cause the battery to overheat. At the same time, it also pointed out that this batch of batteries will be manufactured at the Nanjing plant in China and will replace batteries with new processes to customers. In addition, in order to avoid the risk of battery overheating when the owner is waiting for replacement, the battery diagnosis and control software will also be updated, and on-site inspections will be performed to minimize the risk. This is not the first time LG EnergySolution has recalled lithium batteries. After the occurrence of five household energy storage system accidents, in December 2020, the US subsidiary of LG EnergySolution has recalled household energy storage RESU batteries sold from 2017 to March 2019. LG battery fires frequently occurred. On April 6 this year, a battery energy storage system fire occurred in Hongsong County, Chungcheongnam-do, South Korea. Although there were no casualties, the battery energy storage system equipment and 140 internal batteries were burned, and the total property loss was about 5 Billion won. Prior to this, there were many fire incidents in LG batteries from 2018 to 2019, including the first battery explosion accident in the United States. Arizona Public Service (APS), the public utility company under investigation at the time, said that this was a series of mistakes. Fire accident. First of all, the lithium-ion battery has failed and short-circuited and overheated, and the fire extinguishing system in the battery container could not prevent the overheated battery from spreading to the 'neighbors.' The cascading heat that does not come down is out of control. At that time, LGChem and battery analysis company Exponent put forward different investigation reports, indicating that there is evidence to rule out a fire caused by a battery cell failure, and an external arc can also cause a fire. Previously, LG EnergySolution also said that the cause of the fire may not only be battery problems, but also management and operation problems. After all, battery energy storage systems have many components. In addition to batteries, other such as inverters and converters may also be a problem. However, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of Korea (MOTIE) established an investigation committee with companies in 2019 to investigate the battery fire accident and found that the battery has some defects, including poor cuts, folding sheets and coatings. LG EnergySolution is currently expanding its presence in the United States. It announced in March that it plans to invest more than US$4.5 billion in the United States within four years to expand its battery production capacity by 70GWh to more than 110GWh. In April, the company and General Motors (GM) joint venture UltiumCellsLLC announced an investment of more than 2.3 billion U.S. dollars to build a car battery plant in Tennessee.