Police and ACT Emergency Services were called to the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture building on Marcus Clarke Street just after 12.15pm after being alerted to a strange smell.
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A handful of staff in the building were evacuated while teams of emergency service personnel and firefighters inspected the site.
ACT Police Acting Sergeant Jeremy English said police cordoned off the street at 12.30pm and reopened the street to traffic at 2.20pm.
"Because it was a government building and it was the weekend there was hardly anyone there," Sergeant English said.
"A battery exploded inside which produced unhealthy gases and thats why the firies were there with their hazmat stuff to make sure that the oxygen was at acceptable levels."
A spokesman for the ACT Emergency Services said it was a minor incident.
"It was a very quick job for us," he said. "They went in there, got the couple of people out of the building, went and found the source of it which was from an uninterrupted power supply."
Trades people have worked to fix the faulty power source at the site.
