The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission released information this week on the recall of Eguana Technologies Evolve 0513U Home Energy Storage Systems sold to installers between June 2017 and December 2019. The Evolve systems use LG battery cells that have been singled out for potential battery overheating that could lead to fire. No incidents or injuries have been reported with the Eguana units.
Eguana’s Evolve residential storage system.
The affected systems were sold through Hawaii Energy Connection, Hannah Solar, Solar Direct, Creative Solar, Sunnova and other stores in Hawaii, California, Florida, Georgia and New Hampshire. The serial number range of the Eguana systems containing recalled batteries is between ET-000200 and ET-000600. The serial number is located inside the cabinet toward the bottom left of the unit.
Consumers are encouraged to contact Eguana Technologies to schedule a free repair to the Evolve system. All recalled units connected online will have the batteries’ state of charge remotely limited to reduce the risk of overheating until the batteries are replaced. If a customer’s unit is not connected online, they should contact Eguana Technologies to schedule a technician to manually reduce the state of charge, at no cost.
Eguana Technologies will arrange for all recalled lithium-ion batteries to be properly replaced and disposed of according to federal and state regulations, and is contacting all known owners directly or through its installers.
Customers can contact their installers or Eguana Technologies at 800-667-6478 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, email at lgrecall@eguanatech.com or online at: eguanatech.com/recalls or eguanatech.com and click on “Safety Recalls” at the bottom of the page.
LG Chem is still reeling from the Arizona McMicken energy storage fail and fire in 2019. LG Chem blamed that on Fluence the project company that took LG Chem cells and made them into an ESS installed in a cargo container. Then the next year LG Chem had complaints of smoke coming out of their RESU10H ESS units in residential installations. FINALLY, GM Bolt EVs started “burning” and about the time the Bolt battery pack recall became effective, LG Chem renamed the battery business LGES. At that time, it also admitted that “some” manufacturing lines had problems with torn battery tabs and folded separators in the cells that failed. Now it’s come home to roost on their early ESS sold to the public, add these 10,000 or so ESS units to the approximate 147,000 60kWh battery packs that will be replaced in Bolts that are under recall.