Poor installation blamed for two inverter fires at UK care home solar array

Electricians who inspected a UK care home's solar installation reported that one wall-mounted inverter had caught fire twice. The array is described as 228 panels rated at 445 watts each, about 101 kilowatts peak, feeding three 30-kilowatt inverters. The inspecting firm, Artisan Electrics, said it found several installation defects, including loose MC4 connectors, missing DC isolators on two of the three inverters and poor cable labelling. It also said the burned inverter had been swapped out before proper DC isolation was available, so workers reportedly had to cut live cables while arcing was visible, and that the replacement unit was never fully commissioned, leaving the site unable to monitor system performance effectively. The care home, which has high round-the-clock electricity demand, was said to be still facing steep monthly power bills despite the size of the array. The date of the fires, the site name, the original installer and any fire service attendance are not reported.

Reported by the inspecting electricians and not independently confirmed: loose MC4 connectors, missing DC isolators on two of three inverters, poor cable labelling, inadequate isolation arrangements during inverter replacement leading to live cables being cut with visible arcing, and incomplete commissioning of the replacement inverter.

1. Solar PV systems should be inspected professionally at regular intervals so that loose DC connections and missing safety devices are found before they cause a fire.
2. DC isolation equipment and a written isolation procedure should be in place before any inverter replacement work starts, so that live cables never have to be cut.
3. Replacement equipment should be fully commissioned and monitoring restored, so that later faults are visible to the site owner.

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