Fire at Genex Power battery project in Qld a ‘rare occurrence’
Genex Power chief executive Craig Francis said the company was still on track to commission its 50-megawatt Bouldercombe battery project in Central Queensland next month, despite one of its Tesla Megapacks catching fire on Tuesday night.
With the single-battery unit still smouldering on Wednesday, Mr Francis said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. But he confirmed it did not damage any of the other 39 Telsa modules at the project, 23 kilometres south of Rockhampton.
Thick black smoke and a putrid plastic smell came from the site, which is about 500 metres from homes. Nine
Despite global concerns about lithium-ion batteries catching fire, including at Neoen’s Victorian Big Battery project in Geelong in 2021, Mr Francis said it was a safe technology.
“These fires are rare and infrequent and this technology has been deployed globally on a massive scale, largely without incident,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
Mr Francis, who took over as chief executive of the listed energy company this month, said the company did not know the cause of the fire that started at 7.45pm on Tuesday, and was waiting for a report from Tesla.
The fire resulted in thick black smoke and a putrid plastic smell from the site, which is about 500 metres from homes.
“We don’t know the cause as of yet. We are working through that with Tesla,” Mr Francis said. “As you would appreciate, it’s pretty technical stuff and there is lots of monitoring equipment. They are yet to present a root cause to us. It shouldn’t take a huge amount of time.
“The fire has been allowed to burn out and there has been no impact on site infrastructure. There was no indication whatsoever [this was going to happen].”
Genex had been completing the
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