Firefighters And Solar Panels

10 17 16 1 2 courtesy of u s.

Firefighters and solar panels.

Much inaccurate information about pv and firefighter safety has been published on the internet recently even to the point of recommendations to let it burn if solar panels are spotted on a roof. Since solar panels are everywhere from home roofs to roadside signs to supermarkets firefighter training is intended to deal with all the challenges that may arrive when fighting fire with solar products involved. That forces the panels to. Solar power 101 and the fire service.

The first way is by turning off your inverter by a simple flip of the switch located on the front panel see picture below. Firefighters and solar panel safety. Marc van de velde a loss prevention expert at xl catlin discusses the issues. Regulations must be unified and adhered to so that renewable energy companies in all fifty states are in compliance with research based federal safety recommendations.

The amount of electricity generated by solar energy is increasing exponentially. 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. Another big concern that bothers most people is how well firefighters are capable of controlling a house fire with solar panels. The manufacturers of solar panels state that anything that reduces or blocks the sunlight from reaching the panel surface will reduce energy production.

These questions pose a problem for modern firefighters and are some of the reasons the madison fire department applied for grants to install solar photovoltaic panels at their station. Today in the united states demand for solar is at an all time high and the fire. 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. However solar panels also present some new and challenging risks especially to firefighters.

The rising popularity of solar energy also requires firefighters to develop better training for emergency scenarios involving solar panels. Solar panels pose an extremely low fire hazard. 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.