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> "no active monitoring" What the actual... how is something like this even allowed to be operational without monitoring?

krisoft 5y ago
It wasn’t operational, it was being comissioned. You folks are acting as if some huge crime against humanity happened here. In reality nobody got hurt, the company who messed up will pay to put it right. They already indicated (in the linked report) that they learned from the incident and changed multiple things in their systems and procedures as a result.
- smcleod 5y ago
  It's a live (active) power source even if it's being commissioned. I don't think it's a crime against humanity but it sure created pollution and waste.
- nomercy400 5y ago
  This. Lessons learned, improvements implemented.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Nobody ever got internet virtue points by keeping their cool. You gotta be Outraged(TM).
- wolrah 5y ago
  > It wasn’t operational, it was being comissioned. You're telling me that you don't see a problem with the idea of starting up a bleeding edge system intended to store incredible amounts of energy without the monitoring systems connected? In general if you don't have a way to monitor an industrial-scale system you go in to your fail-safe state.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    > intended to store incredible amounts of energy Each of these Megapacks can contain 1.5% of the energy contained in a petrol station. :) Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, these are realy nice and big batteries. That being said the energies stored in them are far from incredible. These boxes were by all accounts manufactured in Nevada. They have been moved all the way to Victoria, lowered to the ground and hooked to the site’s wiring. They were not “charged” yet. The next step as part of the comissioning was to hook them up to the monitoring system before they are checked out. No matter when you hook them up to be monitored there is a step just before it when they are not monitored yet. > In general if you don't have a way to monitor an industrial-scale system you go in to your fail-safe state. That is indeed a great idea. And if you read the report you can see that after they hooked up each box they put them manually into “maintenance” mode. This mode de-energises all systems in the box. It totaly makes sense that they thought this procedure is the correct one to reach the fail-safe state you mention. Turns out they were wrong. They learned this now and changed their procedures.

krisoft 5y ago

It wasn’t operational, it was being comissioned. You folks are acting as if some huge crime against humanity happened here. In reality nobody got hurt, the company who messed up will pay to put it right. They already indicated (in the linked report) that they learned from the incident and changed multiple things in their systems and procedures as a result.

smcleod 5y ago
It's a live (active) power source even if it's being commissioned. I don't think it's a crime against humanity but it sure created pollution and waste.
nomercy400 5y ago
This. Lessons learned, improvements implemented.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Nobody ever got internet virtue points by keeping their cool. You gotta be Outraged(TM).
wolrah 5y ago
> It wasn’t operational, it was being comissioned. You're telling me that you don't see a problem with the idea of starting up a bleeding edge system intended to store incredible amounts of energy without the monitoring systems connected? In general if you don't have a way to monitor an industrial-scale system you go in to your fail-safe state.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > intended to store incredible amounts of energy Each of these Megapacks can contain 1.5% of the energy contained in a petrol station. :) Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, these are realy nice and big batteries. That being said the energies stored in them are far from incredible. These boxes were by all accounts manufactured in Nevada. They have been moved all the way to Victoria, lowered to the ground and hooked to the site’s wiring. They were not “charged” yet. The next step as part of the comissioning was to hook them up to the monitoring system before they are checked out. No matter when you hook them up to be monitored there is a step just before it when they are not monitored yet. > In general if you don't have a way to monitor an industrial-scale system you go in to your fail-safe state. That is indeed a great idea. And if you read the report you can see that after they hooked up each box they put them manually into “maintenance” mode. This mode de-energises all systems in the box. It totaly makes sense that they thought this procedure is the correct one to reach the fail-safe state you mention. Turns out they were wrong. They learned this now and changed their procedures.