How I researched, wrote, and designed a keynote battery storage safety presentation delivered at the 6th IEEE International Conference.
Ayushi Nema Role : Project Support & Marketing Associate, BESS Consulting
Project Snapshot
- Presentation: “Project Development Best Practices for Safe Operation of Battery Energy Storage Systems”
- Venue: 6th IEEE International Conference (July 2026)
- Format: 27-slide keynote deck covering BESS fundamentals, hazard taxonomy, two real incident investigations, and a six-part project-development best-practices framework
- My Role: Researched, wrote, and designed the full presentation end-to-end; delivered on stage by the firm’s CEO
The Brief
India is targeting 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, which its own National Electricity Plan projects will require roughly 208 GWh of battery storage, deployed at a pace few other markets have attempted. Global battery storage isn’t far behind: 108 GW went in during 2025 alone, a 40% jump from the year before. The brief was to build a keynote that could hold that opportunity and its risk in the same breath: explain why BESS deployment is accelerating, then use real incident evidence, not generic warnings, to make the case that safety has to be designed in from day one.
Research: Grounding the Argument in Two Real Investigations
For APS McMicken (Arizona, 2019), I traced the failure to its origin, an internal fault in a single cell in a specific rack, and worked backward through what was missing: no thermal barriers between cells, no forced ventilation to clear off-gases, and no entry or ventilation procedure written into the emergency response plan.
For Moss Landing (California, January 2025), one of the most significant BESS fires the industry has seen, and recent enough that I was researching it within months of it happening, I built out root causes across four dimensions: the facility was operating at high state-of-charge during routine testing when the fire triggered; it was designed in 2020, before NFPA 855 existed as a safety standard; its indoor warehouse layout let heat transfer rapidly between double-stacked NMC racks with no physical containment barrier; and its water-based suppression system was deactivated mid-incident once proven ineffective at scale.
Each case study closes with specific, auditable takeaways, SOC caps, legacy-design audits against UL 9540A, containment over suppression, chemistry selection at procurement, rather than general lessons.
This is the research work I do by default: take a real, messy incident with no single clean source, reconstruct the causal chain, and turn it into something a project team can actually act on.
Storytelling: Two Cases, One Cumulative Argument
The deck opens on scale, not risk, “108 GW” in a single year, before pivoting on one line: “But speed without safety is a risk India cannot afford.” That’s the hinge the rest of the talk turns on.
The two case studies aren’t disconnected horror stories, I sequenced them to build on each other. McMicken establishes the physical mechanics of what goes wrong: no thermal barriers, no ventilation, no response plan for a gas-filled enclosure. Moss Landing, six years later and in a different regulatory environment, shows the same category of failure recurring when SOC discipline, containment design, and pre-standard legacy risk go unaddressed. Together, they argue that safety is a set of specific, auditable decisions, not a general awareness problem.
Rather than closing the safety narrative on either fire, I resolved it on an industry-wide proof point instead: the failure rate per GWh has fallen 99% since 2018, even as far more batteries have been deployed. That’s the payoff, not one perfect project, but evidence that the lessons from incidents like these actually get absorbed into practice.
By the Numbers
- 108 GW: New battery storage capacity, 2025 (IEA)
- 208 GWh: BESS India needs by 2030 (CEA)
- 99%: Drop in failure rate per GWh since 2018
- 2: Real incident investigations researched and written
Skills for the Energy Industry
- BESS technical fluency: Cell to module to rack to system cascade, the MW/MWh power-versus-energy distinction, and core BMS functions (voltage, current, and temperature monitoring).
- Chemistry & hazard analysis: LFP-versus-NMC thermal stability trade-offs and the chemistry of thermal runaway itself, separator meltdown, oxygen release, and the fuel-heat-oxidizer sequence.
- Incident investigation: Reconstructing root causes for two real, differently regulated fires, an outdoor substation failure and an indoor warehouse failure, into a single comparable set of lessons.
- Standards & regulatory context: Working knowledge of NFPA 855 and UL 9540A, and what “pre-standard legacy design” actually means for a retrofit or audit decision.
- Project-development framing: Translating hazard and incident findings into a six-part best-practices framework, site selection, system design, BMS, fire detection, that a project team can act on at each development phase.
Outcome
The result was a fully researched, written, and designed 27-slide keynote presentation, delivered on stage at the 6th IEEE International Conference by the firm’s CEO. It grounded a fast-scaling India storage narrative in two real, recent incident investigations rather than generic risk statements, and closed on industry-wide evidence that safety lessons compound over time, treating safety as a project-development discipline to be designed in from day one, not an afterthought bolted on before commissioning.
Skills Demonstrated
- Research: Root-cause reconstruction from real, recent incidents; technical and market research (IEA, CEA); working knowledge of safety standards (NFPA 855, UL 9540A).
- Storytelling: Sequencing paired case studies into a cumulative argument; opening on scale before pivoting to risk; closing on industry-trend evidence rather than a single narrative.