Analysis of Fire Risk Associated with Photovoltaic Power Generation System

Guomin Zhao,Lv Jian,Jin Shuang,Min Li,Sun Yuping,Zhicheng He,Liu Zhongxian,Qingsong Zhang

doi:10.1155/2018/2623741

Abstract

Because of increasing energy consumption and severe air pollution in China, solar photovoltaic power generation plants are being deployed rapidly. Owing to various factors such as technology, construction, and imperfection of construction standards, solar photovoltaic systems have certain fire risks. This paper focuses on the fire risks of building-integrated solar photovoltaic buildings, as well as temperature and heat flow density near a photovoltaic system in a fire. Based on FDS simulation results, the influence of different building fires on photovoltaic systems is analysed. It is found that the influence of fire on photovoltaic systems installed on a building with a flat roof is stronger than that on a system installed on a building with a sloping roof; the influence of fire on a photovoltaic system installed on a building with external wall thermal insulation is stronger than that on a system installed on a building without such insulation; and in the presence of a skylight, a photovoltaic system installed on a building with a sloping roof is more dangerous.

Highlights

Given the difficulty in reconciling the contradiction between the limitations of conventional energy sources such as oil and coal and the expanding energy demand, all countries in the world have been promoting the development of photovoltaic systems
If roof temperature and heat flow density are high, the photovoltaic systems on the roof are at great risk
When the exposed waterproofing and thermal insulation material in a flatroofed building fire is ignited, the roofing temperature increases more than 750°C, roof heat flow density more than 260 kW/m2, and any photovoltaic systems on the roof are more likely to ignite

Summary

Introduction

Given the difficulty in reconciling the contradiction between the limitations of conventional energy sources such as oil and coal and the expanding energy demand, all countries in the world have been promoting the development of photovoltaic systems. Photovoltaic power generation systems may undergo spontaneous combustion. Such systems generally consist of a photovoltaic array (which is composed of low iron tempered, EVA FILM, solar power chip, and TPT dorsal membrane), combiner boxes, inverter, and transformer. Photovoltaic arrays of photovoltaic power generation systems are mainly installed on the roof of a building, which can be threatened by building fire. Great importance has been attached to the power generation e ciency of the photovoltaic systems, but few researchers have focused on the safety aspects of these systems, especially photovoltaic buildings. Once a building re starts, photovoltaic power generation systems will be exposed to great danger; for this reason, in the present study, the authors apply FDS to simulate indoor res, building roof re, and other types of re scenarios and analyse the threats posed by di erent types of building res to solar photovoltaic power generation systems by detecting the temperature eld and heat ow density of certain areas

Theoretical Model

Simulation and Analysis

Conclusions and Suggestions