RobotRisk Autonomous Systems Incident & Risk Register
RobotRisk / energy storage / Fluence

Fluence

Products: n/a. Risk band: Elevated   RobotRisk index 20.2/100 (incidents/exposure, time-weighted) · 99th percentile of 213 energy storage companies.

Analyst brief

The record contains four entries spanning 2019-2022: two overheating malfunctions, one fire rated as well-managed by the vendor's own response team, and the 2019 APS McMicken explosion that injured four firefighters. Severity is mixed, with three moderate events and one severity-4 incident; there is no fatality on record. The index of 18.5 places Fluence at the 99.1 percentile within energy storage, indicating a concentration of documented events well above peers in the category. The pattern is press-driven, arising from grid-scale battery storage deployments rather than a single regulatory action, with the dominant failure mode being thermal/overheating events in large-format lithium installations. No incidents are recorded after 2022 in this data.

Entries by year and severity

012019 S4: 11192022 S2: 11222024 S2: 1124
S1S2S3S4S5

By incident type

By severity

RobotRisk index vs energy storage alternatives

Comparisons over time

RobotRisk index over time

Yearly entries vs category average

fire over time vs category

malfunction over time vs category

Incident log (4 unique incidents)

SevDateTypeLocationIncidentSource
S209/05
2024 · ~12:00 PT
fire Escondido, CA, USASDG&E Escondido, California BESS fire 'well managed' by Fluence-supported response · 1 site, minimal impact, no injuries re… Energy-Storage.News
S204/2022 malfunction Chandler, AZ, USAOverheating event at AES 10MW Chandler, Arizona storage facility · 10MW facility, 1 event, no injuries Fluence Energy SEC filin
S404/2019
~20:00
fire Surprise, AZ, USAAPS McMicken (Surprise, AZ) battery explosion injures four firefighters · 1 site, 4 firefighters injured Energy-Storage.News
S2 malfunction Overheating event at 300MW Fluence-supplied storage facility · 300MW facility, 1 event, no injuries Fluence Energy SEC filin

Alternatives in energy storage

LG Energy SolutionTesla EnergyEos Energy EnterprisesBlue SolutionsSamsung SDIEnerSysAESCAmerican Battery Solutions
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