FIRE SAFETY OF PV MODULES AND BUILDINGS: OVERVIEWS, BOTTLENECKS AND HINTS

摘要

The enhancement of the fire safety of buildings with PV modules installed/integrated on roofs or facades is a topic that still concerns the PV industry and research communities due to the fact that the presence of PV modules can facilitate a fast spread of the flames. Considering that PV modules are spreading all over the world on buildings, there is the need to guarantee higher safety requirements both in order to avoid economic losses and to protect people who can be involved in case of fire. This is involving, on one hand, a continuous improvement of the international and national regulation frameworks and, on the other hand, new research activities for the evaluation of the PV module behavior in case of exposure to an external fire that are aimed at considering real conditions for PV installations in order to go beyond the actual framework and further improve the fire safety aspects. Therefore, this work aims at presenting a clear understanding of the existing regulation framework (at the International, Italian and Swiss levels) and at resuming the main results of the current studies and activities of some institutions (RSE and Italian National Rescue and Services - DCPST - Italy, SUPSI-ISAAC - Switzerland).