E3/DC to replace 77 LG battery modules after fire in Germany

A fire broke out last week in the basement of a home in Werne, North Rhine-Westphalia, involving an E3/DC residential battery with an LG Energy Solution module.

The local volunteer fire department, responding to a suspected fire, found the smoke-filled home empty. The team said they struggled to extinguish the 6 kWh battery blaze.

A fire department spokesperson told pv magazine that it was an S10 home power plant from German supplier E3/DC.

“The team tried to extinguish the enclosed 6 kWh battery, which was difficult due to the flames flaring up repeatedly behind the sheet metal cladding,” said the volunteer fire department.

E3/DC has also confirmed the fire involved a S10E 6.5 home power station installed in 2019. The company said it is helping LG Energy Solution with investigations and plans to replace battery modules from the same production batch as a precaution, affecting 77 customers.

Firefighters disconnected the power at the sub-distribution box and used gel extinguishers to cool the battery, which reignited repeatedly.

After consulting the system’s installer, the crew manually dismantled the battery, submerged it in a 600-liter container, and continued cooling.

Local utility RWE shut off the main power to the home due to damages. The operation involved 38 volunteers over a period of four hours.

Despite sporadic fires in PV storage systems, their occurrence remains rare, given Germany's 1.5 million installations.