Is Every Grid Battery a Moss Landing Waiting to Happen?

Moss Landing was a legacy design, built before the first U.S. fire code for battery storage. Newer designs are safer.

Evidence

Layout. Moss Landing packed 4,539 battery racks, stacked two high, into one building, and the fire spread through it. New projects space batteries in separate outdoor containers, so a fire usually stays in one.

Chemistry. Moss Landing used NMC batteries, which can start to overheat at 320°F. New projects mostly use LFP, which stays stable to 446°F.

Track record. A new EPRI study of 150 failures worldwide: of containers installed in 2018, about 1 in 110 has failed. Of those installed in 2023, 1 in 2,000.

Irony. At launch, Vistra called it “the model” for battery storage. The industry went the other way.

Sources: WECC, “Moss Landing BESS Fire Report,” Dec. 2025; EPRI, “Risk Factors and Failure Statistics of Lithium Ion BESS,” Oct. 2026; Vistra news release, Jan. 2021.