UL 9540AFire Testing Certification Gives Veloce's VPort the Industry’s Smallest Footprint
With the rapid growth of battery energy storage solutions (BESS), size matters. Often, it's the product certifications and third-party test results that make a BESS project footprint too large for prime time. This brings many of them to a screeching halt before ground is ever broken because they simply do not fit in available spaces. That’s where Veloce comes in with its recently announced zero clearance certification to UL 9540A (here's the announcement in case you missed it).
VPort is Veloce’s BESS product line. Frankly, the topic of UL certifications is one to put you to sleep, certainly not worth a headline. Or is it…?
UL9540A is not a certification in and of itself, but rather a test as part of the overall certification process. Sometimes dramatic, it involves setting the inside of a battery on fire. Awake now? That’s what makes this more exciting than most product tests and an important one, at that.
We’ve all seen the news stories about battery fires. This test is to understand what happens when a battery catches fire. It’s unusual in that the company having its product tested has some say in the test parameters. We had to choose how far away our system was from combustible surfaces.
Many companies test their system’s equipment at least ten feet from the combustible surface, to ensure a
positive result. Not Veloce! We placed our VPort BESS immediately against the surface, to the point the two were touching. Once the fire started - guess what happened. Nothing. Some smoke was released high and out of the way, as we planned. No fire was visible from outside of the unit and the combustible surface temperature barely increased.
This is an extraordinary result. Better yet - it was accomplished without the need for fire suppression or control system, which means no maintenance is required to maintain this rating.
Veloce’s VPort battery system is designed for the urban environment, which is where most of us live and work. We designed our system to go next to buildings and in parking lots, taking up far less space than conventional systems. The UL9540A fire test is simply the latest proof that the VPort is simply the best BESS for urban commercial environments. Veloce’s VPort boasts:
Extraordinary fire safety
The most compact footprint
Modularity, meaning it’s always the right size
An attractive enclosure
Full certification
Made in the US
Readiness to ship now
Look for more innovation in our FastGrid™ grid edge hardware and software ecosystem from Veloce soon.
