Almost anyone now knows what a Solar panel is and how it looks like. The market has expanded a lot in the recent years making them accessible to the general public.

One less known fact is the dangers that PV systems (especially roof-mounted systems) pose if the necessary precautions are not taken. Renewable energy is perceived as the green, Safe technology that cannot harm anything or anyone but these are in fact devices that generated electricity at high voltages. Roof-mounted installations can have at any time flowing through its cables up to 1000 V DC (which is lethal, yes) and in the case of any faulty cabling or malfunctions of the modules, this becomes extremely dangerous for people.

One specific case happened in the city of Malmo, Sweden back in 2014 when a faulty inverter at a sports gym caused a fire and due to the high electrical voltages on the roof caused by the PV installation, the fireman intervention was extremely difficult.

There are several devices now available on the market which can safely rapidly shutdown module in case of emergencies but they are not obligatory yet anywhere except for the US.

Do you know of any similar case like this and do you think legislation which involves mandatory extra safety equipment should be implemented everywhere?