Solar Panel Fires Australia

The first way is by turning off your inverter by a simple flip of the switch located on the front panel see picture below.

Solar panel fires australia. Since sunpower s panels are the most efficient on the market 1 they ll make more energy than competing panels in a variety of low light situations but any. Faulty or poorly installed solar panel systems have sparked fires at more than 20 homes in wa in the past two years. The south australian government will roll out at least 50 000 home solar panels and batteries across the state in a plan to create the world s largest virtual power plant. But it does make it possible for leaf litter to accumulate under the panels and create a fire hazard.

In laboratory based fire tests of roof assemblies 1 2 the maximum allowable fire spread is between approximately 20 and 40 ft 2 1 9 and 3 7 m 2 depending on whether an a b or c rating is desired. So what are dc isolators. Figures from the electricity safety watchdog show that in the two years to june 30 there were 24 incidents caused by defective solar panel installations. Energy 11 16pm feb 4.

Unless alternative environmental factors are at play solar panel fires are caused by one thing dc arc faults. Dc isolators are switches that are found on the side of photovoltaic panels. As part of the study a survey of australian based solar installers was conducted and it was found that over 60 of these installers indicated that rooftop dc isolators were a primary cause of solar related fires in australia. These technologies have been readily available in australia since 2012 so any solar fire that occurs on a solar system installed since 2012 was preventable.

Dc arc faults are quite simply electrical energy flowing through an air gap which in turn creates an electrical arc. In almost all rooftop solar installations there s a gap between the solar panels and the roof. Normally this is a good thing as it allows air to circulate and help cool the panels. Solar panels work by converting sunlight into electricity so the cleaner your panels are the more efficiently they ll be able to generate clean energy for your home or business.

In actual roof fires with roof mounted solar panels fire damage has involved areas of between 1 000 and 183 000 ft 2 93 and 17 000 m 2. When fire departments arrive to a house fire where solar panels are interconnected to the power grid they have two options to kill the power on your solar panels and both ways are very quick. Microinverters and dc optimised systems were developed more than 10 years ago to prevent solar fires caused by dc arc faults.