Solar Blaze Bombshell: Rooftop Panels Ignite 60% More Fires
A surge in house fires caused by solar panels and their batteries is sparking safety concerns over UK Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband’s plan for millions more rooftop installations.
The Telegraph has the story.
UK fire services faced a blaze involving a solar panel once every two days in 2024, according to data gathered by insurance company QBE, marking a 60% increase in the past two years.
QBE canvassed data from across the UK’s fire services to see how many blazes were caused by solar installations.
It also found fires were rising faster than the rate of installations, suggesting a rise in the number of solar panels could not explain the increase in incidents alone.
Adrian Simmonds, a senior QBE risk manager, said: “Solar is essential to the UK’s clean energy transition but the rapid pace of deployment is raising risk concerns.
“Our analysis shows fires involving solar panels have risen at twice the rate of new installations over the past two years. Safe solar panel installation and maintenance are essential to reducing fires.”
The findings follow a series of disastrous fires linked to solar installations that are thought to have been either faulty or badly maintained.
Earlier this year, a blaze caused by rooftop solar panels forced the evacuation of pregnant women and babies from St Michael’s maternity hospital in Bristol.
Another rooftop solar panel fire, in Church Crookham, Hampshire, damaged three flats in 2022.
Mr Miliband is pushing to accelerate UK solar capacity from 18 gigawatts now to as much as 85 gigawatts by 2035, a nearly fivefold increase.
Some of this expansion will be in the form of ground-mounted panels in the giant solar farms that are replacing farmland across counties like Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Devon and Cornwall.
However, Mr Miliband’s recent Solar Roadmap also calls for rooftop panels to be fitted on millions more homes in addition to the 1.5 million already equipped. It also proposes minimising planning requirements, which can incorporate safety regulations.
QBE’s data showed that there were 107 fires linked to solar panels in 2022 when the UK had about 1.3 million solar panels installed. By 2024, by which point 1.7 million panels were installed, the number of fires had risen to 171.
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