Lee Duck-hwan
The author is an honorary professor at Sogang University.
A major fire broke out in March 2025 at an energy storage system (ESS) facility attached to a solar power plant in Gangjin, South Jeolla. Within 24 minutes, 123 firefighters and 31 fire engines arrived at the scene. Yet they were powerless against the thermal runaway of lithium-ion batteries.
The enclosed facility made conventional firefighting methods ineffective. During the 10 hours it took for the fire to burn itself out, 3,852 battery modules worth more than 10 billion won ($6.4 million) were destroyed.
A large-scale solar power installation is seen in the Saemangeum region of North Jeolla Province. The project is one of Korea’s largest solar energy developments. [SAEMANGEUM DEVELOPMENT AND INVESTMENT AGENCY]
