Mitigating the risks of fires and overheating in solar facilities

Solar energy has been rapidly growing in Australia in recent years: the favourable climate and competitive costs led the industry to achieve a boom in both solar farms projects and overall panel installation.

A recent report rated Australia as one of the cheapest countries for solar energy kilowatt1 which helps to explain this trend. This growth, however, has been followed by an increase in the number of fires linked to the photovoltaic (PV) panels operations in several country regions.

Another critical aspect is that safety standards and regulations are still relatively new in Australia according to sector specialists. This aspect reveals that the industry still needs to improve its safety standards and systems, having proven technologies in place to ensure the operations are running smoothly without any incidents, especially in solar farms.

More recently, in January 2022, a fire at Finley Solar Farm compromised an area of around 5 hectares in New South Wales. The NSW Fire Brigade and other relevant Fire Fighting Brigades spent around one hour and a half to monitor and end the fire episode. The cause of the fire is still unknown and investigations will be conducted to determine it.

Fires in solar facilities like this one can potentially have serious consequences to the environment such as starting a bushfire, burnt out solar panels, batteries, other electrical equipment and interrupting the power supply to the region and nearby communities.

The environmental pollution caused by the fire smoke and the toxic materials that could leak and contaminate the ground have a serious impact on biodiversity and can be hard to measure. All these consequences are unlikely to be reversed after a fire has happened and the remoteness of solar farm locations can make it hard for firefighting brigades to access the area.

Aerial footage of the blaze at Finley Solar Farm (NSW) captured by Eddie Madden

The causes of solar panel fires can be various, including issues on installation, isolators, and inverters, among other issues. Sometimes even wild animals that are in the area can pose a serious threat and start a fire due to the panel’s high temperature. That was the case of a large fire started on a solar farm in California that reached more than 1,000 acres and impacted the wildlife.

The fire started because of a bird wing that touched multiple electrical conductors that were at a high temperature, starting a fire almost immediately. The fire spread quickly and destroyed 1,127 acres of land before it could be controlled and extinguished. This episode reveals how critical it is to have technology in places to detect fires early as most of its locations are unmanned.

Solar farm fire in California destroys 1,127 acres

In addition to that, the solar facilities large areas and the possibility of fire spreading quickly through the hot panels makes it essential to have some sort of long-distance monitoring system or technology in place to mitigate the associated risks. These systems can quickly identify higher and abnormal temperatures or early-stage fires, provide the exact location of the overheated equipment or fire and where it is moving to in order to provide a quicker response to protect the area, including equipment and assets as well as mitigate the environmental damage.

Mitigating the risks with proven technology

Our technology can help monitor the conditions of solar farm panels in real time with one single fibre cable in order to detect and prevent overheating and fire incidents. Our system is suitable to:

Do the monitoring for large and remote areas,
Cover large areas, monitoring an entire solar farm up to 70km of length with a single system,
Provide exact location of the fire, temperature and where it is moving,
Suitable for outdoor areas,
Can be easily installed, and
No maintenance needed after installation.

The system can be fully integrated to your site system and in case of any abnormal conditions, notifications will be automatically sent via control panel or smart phone for an early response. Another advantage is that the technology has a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) in the long run with the cable having up to 40 years of usage expectancy, contributing to a safer, more sustainable, and productive practice when it comes to renewable energy in Australia.

To get to know more about how our technology works or request a quote for your project please click here.