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Home » Solar Energy » Solar industry is expanding, Careful in safely and effectively
Solar industry is expanding, Careful in safely and effectively
We are seeing problems here with polarised circuit breakers being wired in reverse polarity that catch fire when turned off under load, Isomax isolating switches that catch fire when operated or have loads in excess of 13 amps and roof top isolator switches that get water ingress and catch fire. Also workmanship issues with the isolator wiring. We have also had inverters failing within 2 years causing fires.
In the last 2 weeks we have had an inverter fire at a residence and a roof top isolator fire on a commercial premise with a 30 kw of solar array. At present the electrical regulatory authorities do not have the ability to respond in a manner to isolate the panels for these types of faults and due to our Solar PV being such a new industry there are limited if any private companies set up in a manner to respond to these types of issues.
Even when the regulators have had electrical contractors on site to assist they have either had no experience with solar or have not been set up with the correct safety equipment to be able to undertake isolation in a safe manner.
I have seen test reports from America that say covering of the panels with tarps will not totally eliminate the ability of the arrays to generate. To find a suitably fire rated blanket that will work and to identify where they are available and how to apply them would seem to be the next issue to assist with controlling solar PV related fires.
As the solar industry is expanding at a dramatic rate the ability to be able to safely and effectively respond to solar PV related issues is getting more of an urgent priority.
In the last 2 weeks we have had an inverter fire at a residence and a roof top isolator fire on a commercial premise with a 30 kw of solar array. At present the electrical regulatory authorities do not have the ability to respond in a manner to isolate the panels for these types of faults and due to our Solar PV being such a new industry there are limited if any private companies set up in a manner to respond to these types of issues.
Even when the regulators have had electrical contractors on site to assist they have either had no experience with solar or have not been set up with the correct safety equipment to be able to undertake isolation in a safe manner.
I have seen test reports from America that say covering of the panels with tarps will not totally eliminate the ability of the arrays to generate. To find a suitably fire rated blanket that will work and to identify where they are available and how to apply them would seem to be the next issue to assist with controlling solar PV related fires.
As the solar industry is expanding at a dramatic rate the ability to be able to safely and effectively respond to solar PV related issues is getting more of an urgent priority.
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However if the fire is raging this can not be done. Also proper fire resistant material will be required to make a proper covering after putting out the fire.
you will need large quantities of such material to be kept ready by each owner of a rooftop system as a precaution. May not be practical especially in large commercial installations.
This is a serious problem which will have to be addressed.
may be if some one comes out with a foam or liquid that can be sprayed on to the panels which would prevent the light from being absorbed, then we could have a solution. But again there must be a method to clean the panels after dismantling so that they can be reused.