Honeywell and Nexceris, developer of Li-ion Tamer lithium-ion gas detection solutions, announced the formation of a strategic alliance to address lithium-ion battery system safety. The partnership, which builds on Honeywell’s fire portfolio, will enhance its detection technology with Li-ion Tamer’s products and give customers early warning capability of potential battery failure and the ability to mitigate or avoid the effects of the failure.
“Lithium-ion batteries offer great potential to many industries, as well as a more environmentally conscious energy source, but can also pose a significant risk if proper protection elements aren’t appropriately in place. Adding Li-ion Tamer solutions to our advanced detection product offerings through this partnership allows us to offer customers industry leading off-gas detection technology and very early warning smoke detection for a safe, redundant way to protect facilities of any scale,” said Peter Lau, president of Commercial Fire for Honeywell Building Technologies. “Li-ion Tamer’s off-gas detection technology strongly complements our leadership in advanced detection and extends our smart edge device strategy. Our goal is to help our customers improve uptime of their facilities and quickly identify the source of a problem – and control it – before it escalates.”
Li-ion Tamer early detection technology improves the safety of lithium-ion battery systems and can improve the overall safety of facilities where lithium-ion batteries may be located. Its off-gas detection technology is designed to identify and alert when a battery off-gases, which occurs prior to thermal runaway or fire. Early detection enables users to take preventative safety steps to avoid or reduce the effects of thermal runaway.
“We’re pleased to partner with Honeywell to offer customers a safer and more reliable way to protect lithium-ion batteries in markets like energy storage,” said Kyle Shen, CEO, Nexceris. “As leaders in our respective areas of detection, we can collectively offer customers innovative ways to protect their facilities and investments.”
Honeywell’s advanced detection business features the VESDA brand of advanced smoke detection technology including aspirating smoke detectors. Honeywell’s strategic alliance with Nexceris will make Li-ion Tamer technology available to customers and channel partners across Honeywell’s portfolio of trusted and well-known fire and life safety brands. It will also allow Honeywell to sell its products to new vertical industries including energy storage, data centers, marine and others while offering existing customers new, innovative advanced detection solutions.
Since its first utility-scale installation in 2017, Li-ion Tamer’s business has grown significantly. Its products protect more than 85 of lithium-ion energy storage facilities worldwide totaling more than 550,000 sensor hours of field operation.
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This sounds like the very device that was needed In the APS energy storage system that failed in Surprise Arizona last year. After months of investigation on the energy storage containerized system failure, fire and explosion, it was determined that the fire suppression system worked in the energy storage unit, but, the off gassing of the burning batteries in the battery pack caught air and exploded when the door was cracked to check for dangerous gas levels, remember the movie back draught? In the final analysis, venting each battery module to outside air would have prevented the explosion.