The fire and security risks include:
- Theft, vandalism or sabotage of panels, inverters, cabling
- Fire risk resulting from electrical faults, overheating, or arc failures
- Operational downtime and damage to reputation, revenue, and OPEX
- False alarms and maintenance issues caused by wildlife, weather and environment
At Tecserv UK, we deliver fully integrated fire, security and monitoring systems tailored to the needs of utility-scale solar farms. Our systems balance prevention, detection, and response to protect your assets and ensure continuous generation.
Why Solar Farms Need Specialist Fire & Security Solutions
When designing a fire and security system to protect a solar farm site there are many aspects to consider.
- Locations are usually remote: Most solar farms operate without permanent staff. This means early detection and remote response capability are essential. Temporary CCTV (e.g. after theft) must be supported by fully monitored systems.
- Large scale / open area exposure: Perimeters, fencing, access roads, and surrounding fields will all need CCTV coverage. Video surveillance should cover the site fence line, equipment enclosures, inverter stations, and all ingress routes. Systems should comply with BS 8418 standard for video surveillance with police response.
- Thermal imaging and temperature anomaly detection: Thermal cameras can detect overheated panels, wiring faults, or hot spots before they develop into fires. They can also excel at detecting intruders even in low light or through adverse conditions.
- Intelligent analytics to reduce false alarms: Movement from wildlife, vegetation, dust, or shadows can trigger false alarms. Modern systems use AI to distinguish between humans, animals, and environmental noise.
- Fire risk specially from PV electrical faults: Fires in solar farms often originate from arc faults, ground faults, or overheating modules. Once they ignite, fire can propagate rapidly across modules or cable runs. Designing for early smoke or heat detection, appropriate spacing, panel isolation, and firefighting access is vital.
- Integration and compliance: Solutions must align with insurers’ requirements and standards. It is also crucial to provide emergency plans to local Fire & Rescue Services with signage and information about access roads.
- Operational and maintenance support: It is also essential to ensure routine maintenance inspections are part of the proposal to ensure operating effectiveness and to maintain system health and reliability over its lifetime.
We deliver fully engineered systems that combine detection, deterrence, response and oversight.
