How safe is battery storage?
Safer every year. Since 2018 the rate of battery storage safety incidents has dropped 99 percent, even as the amount of battery storage on the U.S. grid grew about 60 times over. Here is that record, with a source for every number.
Are batteries getting safer?
Yes, and fast. The amount of battery storage on the grid shot up, and at the same time its incident rate fell almost to nothing. Move through the years to watch both happen.
US grid batteries
43.6 GW
end of 2025
Compared with 2018
50× more
from 0.87 GW at the end of 2018
Incident rate
99% lower
EPRI, 2018 to 2025
Incidents did not rise with all that new storage. EPRI has documented about five incidents a year in the U.S. since 2019, while roughly a third of the country's entire battery capacity was added in 2025 alone.
How to read this
Top chart: utility-scale battery capacity on the U.S. grid, in gigawatts, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The bars show the years with a published EIA year-end figure, plus mid-2026.
Bottom chart: the incident rate of grid battery systems, measured as incidents for the amount of storage in service, from EPRI's worldwide incident database. EPRI reports it as the change from 2018: 97 percent lower by 2023, 98 percent by 2024 and 99 percent by 2025. The dashed stretch covers years EPRI has not published separately. EPRI does not publish a U.S.-only rate.
The two charts use separate scales on purpose. One counts equipment and the other measures how often incidents happen, so they are drawn one above the other on a shared timeline instead of on one set of axes.
How does that compare with gas lines?
Natural gas pipes run under almost every street in Westchester, and we live with them because codes and inspection keep the risk low. Here is their record next to battery storage. Hover or tap a year for details.
Deaths each year from US gas distribution pipeline incidents
- Gas distribution deaths, US (PHMSA)
- Civilian deaths from US grid battery fires
Gas lines, US, 2006 to 2025
169 deaths
and 781 injuries, about 8 deaths a year
Gas lines, New York
14 deaths
and 103 injuries over the same 20 years, including East Harlem in 2014
Grid batteries, US, 2012 to 2024
0 deaths
and no civilian injuries in 35 documented fires
Gas lines reach about 73 million US homes and businesses, and grid batteries are newer and far fewer, so this compares track records rather than rates.
Has New York had battery fires?
By mid-2026 New York had about 100 battery systems of 1 MW or larger in service. Four fires have occurred at New York battery sites, all outside Westchester, and none injured anyone.
- May 31, 2023East Hampton, Suffolk County. No injuries.
- June 26, 2023Warwick, Orange County. No injuries.
- July 27, 2023Chaumont, Jefferson County. No injuries. The state then inspected 57 sites, and air, soil and water testing, including at a school near Warwick, found no significant contamination beyond the sites.
- Dec 19, 2025Warwick, Orange County. One unit burned for about a day. No injuries, downwind monitors read zero, and an April 2026 environmental review found no harm to the surrounding area. The mayor said the unit was operating without the village's authorization.
- Dec 31, 2025New York's 2025 Fire Code takes effect, built on the state working group's recommendations and the national standard NFPA 855.
What else do people ask?
Why did batteries get so much safer?
Better chemistry, better codes and a lot of experience. Over 90 percent of new stationary storage installed in 2025 used LFP batteries, a steadier chemistry that is less prone to overheating (IEA). Systems are now built to the national standard NFPA 855, with spacing set by large-scale fire tests. And EPRI found that most past incidents started in the controls, wiring and other equipment around the batteries rather than in the battery cells, which is the kind of problem that better design and inspection fix.
Is the smoke from a battery fire dangerous?
Treat it like smoke from any fire: stay clear and follow local officials. At New York's battery fires, testing has not found harmful levels beyond the site. At Warwick in December 2025, readings right beside the burning unit reached about half the federal limit for hydrogen cyanide, and monitors downwind read zero.
What about the fire at Moss Landing, California?
It was a different, older design. Moss Landing, which burned in January 2025, packed 1,200 MWh of nickel-based (NMC) batteries inside a single building. New projects in New York use LFP batteries in separate outdoor cabinets, spaced according to large-scale fire tests. California regulators are still investigating the cause, and the site flared up again in September 2026.
Has anyone in the US been hurt by a battery storage fire?
No member of the public, in any of the 35 large US battery storage fires documented from 2012 to 2024. The one incident with injuries was in Surprise, Arizona, in 2019, when four firefighters were seriously hurt in an explosion as they opened the door to the affected unit.
Numbers we checked and left out
- "Electric cars catch fire 61 times less often than gas cars." The source combined federal figures that were never meant to be divided by one another.
- "Battery incidents fell from 9.2 to 0.2 per gigawatt." A reporter's reading of an EPRI chart, not a figure EPRI published. We use EPRI's own statement instead.
- "New York has over 5,000 battery projects." That count includes home batteries, so it cannot be used to measure grid battery risk.
- A New York fire rate. Four fires divided by today's site count would not be a real rate, because most sites have only operated for a few years.
How we know this
- EPRI, BESS Failure Incident Database (updated July 2026): the incident rate fell 99 percent from 2018 to 2025. epri.com
- EPRI, Insights from EPRI's BESS Failure Incident Database, May 2024 (97 percent drop from 2018 to 2023; root causes). epri.com
- SEIA, BESS Safety Factsheet, April 2026 (98 percent drop from 2018 to 2024). seia.org
- MIT Climate Portal, How safe are large battery facilities?, August 2026 (about five US incidents a year since 2019; a third of US capacity added in 2025). climate.mit.edu
- EIA, Utility-scale battery storage capacity continued its upward trend in 2018 (869 MW at the end of 2018). eia.gov
- EIA, U.S. battery storage capacity will increase significantly by 2025 (1.5 GW in 2020). eia.gov
- EIA, U.S. battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024 (about 16 GW at the end of 2023). eia.gov
- EIA, U.S. battery capacity increased 66% in 2024 (over 26 GW). eia.gov
- EIA, Battery storage capacity averaged 70% growth over the last three years, August 2026 (43.6 GW at the end of 2025, nearly 52 GW by mid-2026). eia.gov
- IEA, Global EV Outlook 2026 (LFP share of stationary storage). iea.org
- Fire & Risk Alliance for the American Clean Power Association, Assessment of Potential Impacts of Fires at BESS Facilities, August 2025. cleanpower.org
- PHMSA, Pipeline Incident 20 Year Trends, gas distribution, serious incidents (data as of September 21, 2026), and annual report mileage. phmsa.dot.gov
- NTSB, East Harlem natural gas explosion, report PAR-15/01. ntsb.gov
- NYSERDA, Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group, and the December 2023 findings. nyserda.ny.gov
- NY Department of State, 2025 code adoption notice. dos.ny.gov
- Village of Warwick, Church Street battery site fire updates, December 2025 to April 2026. villageofwarwickny.gov
- Energy-Storage.News, Battery fire in New York involved unauthorised system, mayor says, January 7, 2026. energy-storage.news
- NY State open data, statewide distributed and large-scale storage projects (through June 2026). data.ny.gov
- CalMatters, Moss Landing, 18 September 2026. calmatters.org
- Fire Safety Research Institute, 2019 Surprise, Arizona investigation. fsri.org
Notes for reviewers
- EPRI's database page draws its text with a script, so the "99% from 2018 to 2025" statement is worth confirming by eye once. EPRI's earlier published figures, 97 percent through 2023 and 98 percent through 2024, follow the same trend.
- The capacity chart is U.S. utility-scale battery power capacity from EIA. EIA year-end totals for 2019, 2021 and 2022 were not confirmed in a primary source, so those years are left off rather than estimated.
- The incident rate is EPRI's worldwide figure. The page says so wherever it appears.
- PHMSA "serious incidents" exclude cases where a nearby fire caused the pipeline failure. Including those, 2006 to 2025 deaths are 182 rather than 169.
- The "no civilian injuries" statement rests on an industry-commissioned review, the most complete one available. We phrase it as "documented."
- The "about 100 systems of 1 MW or larger" figure is our query of the state open-data set (99 systems, 437 MW, through June 30, 2026).
- EPRI's database lists the June 2023 Warwick fire as two systems. We count it as one event.