Research project on Photovoltaics and fire safety

Tender description

Notice summary: This study is for a 3 year research project to investigate fire safety of photovoltaics. The study will include a literature survey, a survey of standards, investigations of fires and recommendations. Description: Statistics show that solar PV deployment has risen very rapidly over the last 4 years, driven by large global drop in technology costs. There are more than 0.6 million UK buildings with solar PV installed with solar PV capacity in the UK reaching 5.2GW by the end of February 2015. A recent impact assessment indicated that the UK could have 12-14 GW of solar PV by 2020. PV-related fires are extremely rare; however, a small number of fires involving PV systems has been reported in the press. To date, there has been little concerted follow-up to understand the causes and to improve standards. This proposal will investigate data from fires apparently caused by faulty/incorrectly installed PV systems and comprises: • Literature search of PV fires drawing on international experience • Compilation of a database of records of fires in which PV is involved • Engineering inspections of fires believed to be related to PV over the next 3 years • A review of the standards/proposed standards, BRE, IET, MCS, etc. • Recommendations for avoiding fire, for input into standards • Presentations to DECC and industry. The IET is developing a Code of Practice for PV systems (of all sizes), which will be published in summer 2015. The IET has agreed that the proposed fire safety study will feed into future updates of this code of practice. This project is of interest to a number of teams in DECC (Office for Renewables Deployment, Strategy, Electricity Market Reform (contracts for difference) and to DCLG (fire safety). The project will be managed by officials from both DECC and DCLG with liaison with the IET. The maximum value of this contract is £110,000 + VAT. Bids which exceed this amount will not be considered. The contract will run until March 2018; however, we propose to add break clauses in March 2016 and March 2017.