At the moment more than 1 Million photovoltaic (PV) power generators are connected to thenational grid in Germany. This leads to an increasing number of estimated 300 fire accidents causedby this technology every year. Often the fire brigades deny extinguishing a burning PV generator. Thefear of electric shock and poisonous heavy metals in PV solar panels refrain the firemen from doingtheir task. The cause of a fire of PV systems can be the ignition of the building where the generator ismounted on, arson or technical errors in the PV modules, like strings or the inverter.In order to find more information about the burning conditions of PV generators there is a scientificresearch project carried out. PV systems have become a mass product over the last decades. Theenergy from PV modules is nearly as cheap as out of the grid, energized by fossil energy sources.Intense product research, system improvement, inventions and cheaper mass production are only someaspects of the growing PV solar market. At the moment legislation decreases the funding for solarelectricity. So the modules tend to come from Asia and China and the prices for PV generators arecontinuously falling. The market share of the new thin layer solar panels increases due to cheaperproduction processes. Also the average size of the newly installed solar parks increases. Altogether PVenergy participates with more than 3% in the German electricity supply.The results regarding the durability of PV modules in different fire scenarios are going to be presented.The investigations include all kinds of PV modules that are available on the market:1. Silicone mono- and polycrystalline modules.2. Silicone, CdTe and CIGS thin layer modules.3. Silicone foil modules.The results from the tests supply information for the renewing of testing standards for PV modules andsystems.
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