Methodology

Where entries come from, how they are written and checked, and what the register does not claim.

How entries are made

Two routes lead into the register, and they are not equal in volume. Most entries are found rather than submitted.

Found in public reporting

An automated pipeline runs several times a day. It searches news and trade reporting for incidents at energy assets, discards what is out of scope, reads the articles it finds, writes a draft entry, checks that draft against the sources, and decides whether to publish. Where the sourcing is thin the entry is published with a provisional badge and rechecked over the following days, or held back until more reporting appears.

• Every field must be supported by the cited sources. Where a source does not state something, the field is left empty rather than filled in.
• The disclosure rules below are applied at this stage and are not negotiable. An entry from public reporting names what the reporting names and never an individual person. A submission that cannot be anonymised is rejected rather than published.
• Entries are audited afterwards by a further pass that compares the published text against the sources and flags anything that overstates them.

What this means for you as a reader. Every entry lists the sources it was written from, so nothing has to be taken on trust. If an entry says something the source does not, that is a mistake and we want to hear about it through the corrections page. Automation is why the register can cover incidents across many countries daily. It is also why the sourcing on any single entry matters more than the size of the register, and why each entry says whether it rests on one source or several.

Submitted directly

Anyone can submit an incident through the submission form. Submissions go through the review sequence set out below under the confidential disclosure rule, so the published entry never identifies the site, the companies or the people. The editor sees every submission in the daily log and can correct or withdraw an entry. They are a small share of the register today and are the part we most want to grow, because they cover what never reaches the press.

Who is responsible

The register is run by an editor who sets the rules the pipeline follows, reviews what it produces, and answers corrections and takedown requests. Automation does the volume. Responsibility for what is published sits with a person, and correspondence is answered by a person.

Reference numbers

Every entry is given a number in the order it was written, EIR-0001 upwards. A number is issued once and is never reused or reassigned, so a link to an entry keeps working and a number quoted in a report always means the same incident.

This is why the highest reference number is larger than the number of published entries. An entry that is taken off the register keeps its number, and the number is not given to anything else. If you see a recent entry numbered above the published total, nothing is missing: the difference is entries that were removed. How many have been removed is on the statistics page, because a register that never removes anything is not being checked.

Entry types

The register contains two kinds of published entry, each clearly labelled:

• Direct submissions are entries from people with first-hand knowledge of the incident, operators, engineers, contractors, asset owners. They are anonymised before publication. Submitter identity is held in confidence and never published. Most entries today are found in public reporting; direct submissions are welcome and are held to the same standard of sourcing.
• Entries from public reporting are written from publicly available material: government health and safety publications, EPRI's public BESS Failure Incident Database, regulator findings, fire service statements, operator statements and news reporting. Each carries a link to its sources and names the site and the companies as those sources name them. They reflect only publicly confirmed facts and do not draw conclusions beyond what the sources state. Where an investigation is ongoing, the entry says so.

Almost every entry today is written from public reporting by the automated pipeline described above, which is how the register covers incidents across many countries daily. Direct submissions are the part we most want to grow.

The fields every entry uses

Incident data across this industry is hard to compare because everyone records it differently. Every entry here uses the same fields, whatever the technology or country, and where a source does not state something it is recorded as not stated rather than guessed.

On the public entry, free to read

• Reference, for example EIR-1170, which never changes.
• Technology: battery storage, solar PV, onshore wind, offshore wind, grid infrastructure, or a hybrid site.
• What happened: the category, for example thermal or fire, mechanical, electrical, or structural.
• Severity: near miss, minor, significant or major, defined by harm and loss, not by how it was reported.
• Stage of life: construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance or decommissioning.
• Where and when: country, region and the year of the incident.
• Capacity where a source states it.
• What happened, contributing factors and lessons learned, in plain words.
• Sources: every report used.

On the full record, for subscribers

• Who was involved where the sources name them: site, operator, owner, manufacturer, integrator and contractor.
• Root cause and the part that failed.
• Response: what the fire service or operator did, and injuries where reported.
• Consequences where a public source states them: downtime, loss estimate, insurance and regulatory outcome. Today that is a small minority of records, and the record says so rather than filling the gap.
• Verification status and every source used.

Two fields were added in September 2026, after fire researchers and a trade body both said the same thing on the same day: rules treat every rooftop installation alike because there is no evidence split by how a module is built or how it is fixed.

• Module construction: glass-glass, also called dual glass, or glass-backsheet. Where a report names the backsheet polymer (PVF, PVDF, PET or polyamide) or gives a fire classification (an IEC 61730-2 class for the module, an EN 13501-5 Broof rating for the roof), that is recorded too.
• Mounting: BAPV on-roof, applied to an existing roof; BIPV in-roof, integrated and forming the roof covering; facade, ground, carport or floating, and whether a roof is pitched or flat.

Both are filled only where a source states them. Neither is ever read from a photograph, so an empty field means the reporting did not say, not that nobody looked.

How the cause and the lessons are written

This matters most to researchers and investigators, so it is stated plainly.

1. The cause comes from the sources, never from us. If a fire service, regulator or operator states a cause, the entry states it and attributes it. If they say the cause is under investigation, the entry says that.
2. Where sources disagree, the entry says so and gives both, rather than choosing one.
3. Nothing is inferred from photographs or from similar incidents. A rooftop fire is not recorded as an arc fault because arc faults are common.
4. The lessons are drawn from what the entry itself shows, written for operators, and each one is traceable to a fact in the entry.
5. An entry is descriptive, not investigative. It is not a finding of fault against anyone named in it.
6. Corrections are free for anyone, with no conditions, and a corrected entry says what changed.

Editorial principles

• Two disclosure rules, chosen by where the entry came from. An entry written from public reporting names the site, the place and the companies exactly as the reporting names them, and no further; it never names an individual person, and a name the source does not give is a guess and comes out. An entry from a first-hand submission is anonymised absolutely: no site, no company, no product, no person, and no identifying detail, in the public entry or the paid record. That second rule never bends.
• Descriptive, not investigative. The register describes what happened and what was learned. It does not assign blame, attribute fault, or substitute for regulatory investigation.
• Lessons-led. An entry without a clear lesson is not published. The register exists to share learning, not to log incidents for their own sake.
• Submitter confidentiality. The identity of submitters is held in confidence and never published.
• No commercial promotion. The register does not name, promote, or endorse any product, service, or vendor.
• Public benefit. Every published entry must contribute to industry-wide learning. Material whose primary function is commercial intelligence or competitive disclosure is rejected.

The review process for direct submissions

This sequence applies to incidents submitted through the form. Entries found in public reporting follow the automated route described above, which applies the disclosure rule for publicly reported incidents and the same standard of sourcing.

Provisional entries. Incidents found in public reporting are sometimes published before the full picture is available, so that readers hear about them early. These carry a "Provisional" badge and a short note saying what is confirmed and what is not yet known. The register rechecks provisional entries automatically over the following week, searching for further reports, and updates or confirms the entry when more sources agree. A provisional entry that turns out not to be an incident at an energy asset, or that duplicates an existing entry, is removed. The anonymisation rules apply to provisional entries in full.

1. Acknowledgement

Submitters receive an email acknowledgement on receipt, typically within one working day.

2. Initial screening

Each submission is screened for completeness, relevance, and immediate concerns:

• Is the asset within scope? Battery storage, solar, wind, grid infrastructure, hybrid sites and, from 2 October 2026, the power systems of data centres (UPS battery rooms, backup generators, switchgear, transformers and fuel systems), at any scale: utility, commercial and industrial, and rooftop or building-mounted solar and storage on homes, schools and other buildings.
• Is the description sufficiently detailed to extract a lesson?
• Are there clear lessons-learned statements?
• Are there obvious identifying details that need removal or further anonymisation?

Submissions that fail screening are returned to the submitter with specific feedback. They may be revised and resubmitted.

3. Anonymisation review

Submissions that pass initial screening go through detailed anonymisation review. Identifying details are removed, including but not limited to:

• Operator, asset owner, site, and project names
• Vendor, equipment manufacturer, integrator, and contractor names
• Personnel names, role titles where they would identify individuals, and team names
• Specific dates beyond year
• Specific capacities, sizes, or geographic locations beyond broad bands
• Combinations of details that, while individually non-identifying, would together uniquely identify a site or party

4. Clarification (if needed)

If the submission requires clarification, to extract a clearer lesson, to verify technical detail, or to confirm anonymisation, the submitter is contacted by email. Clarification correspondence is held in confidence.

5. Publication

Approved entries are published with a unique reference ID (EIR-XXXX), structured fields, and three sections: what happened, contributing factors (where provided), and lessons learned. The submitter is notified by email when their entry is published and is provided with the public reference ID.

6. Correction and takedown

Published entries can be corrected or, in exceptional circumstances, taken down. Submitters may request a correction at any time. Third parties who believe a published entry contains identifying information that should not have been published may request a takedown review at editor@energyincidentregister.com. All takedown requests are reviewed; corrections are logged on the corrections page and removals are counted on the statistics page.

Disclosure and anonymisation policy

There are two rules, and which one applies depends on where an entry came from, not on a judgement.

Publicly reported incidents. An entry written from published reporting names the site, the town or city, the country and the companies exactly as the reporting names them, and no further. It never names an individual person, of any role. A name the source does not give is a guess and comes out. Naming a company is a statement of what was reported, not a finding of fault. Any named party can ask for a correction or a right of reply through the corrections page.

First-hand submissions. Anonymisation is non-negotiable and never bends. The register's value to submitters depends on the trust they place in the process. Everything below applies to submissions.

What is removed from a submission

• All names of operators, sites, vendors, contractors, and personnel
• Project names and brand names
• Specific dates (only year is retained)
• Specific capacities (only size band is retained)
• Specific geographic locations (only broad region is retained)
• Any combination of details that would uniquely identify a site or party

What a submission keeps

• Asset type (BESS, solar, wind, grid infrastructure, hybrid, data centre power systems)
• Incident category (thermal, electrical, control system, mechanical, gas release, near-miss, commissioning, other)
• Severity (near-miss, minor, significant, major)
• Year of incident
• Broad geographic region
• Lifecycle stage (commissioning, normal operation, maintenance, end-of-life)
• System size band (for example under 10 MW, 10 to 50 MW, 50 to 100 MW, 100 MW and above)
• Description of what happened, written to convey the technical event without identifying details
• Contributing factors
• Lessons learned

Where anonymisation is uncertain

Where it is not clear whether a combination of retained details could allow identification, the safe choice is taken: details are aggregated, generalised, or removed. The default is to publish less. An entry that loses some specificity but preserves the lesson is better than one that risks identification.

Boundary with regulatory reporting

The register is not a regulator. Submission to the register does not satisfy any regulatory reporting obligation that may apply to the incident under national legislation, employer policy, or contractual requirement. Submitters are responsible for ensuring that any required reporting to the Health and Safety Executive, the relevant national energy regulator, or any other competent authority has been completed.

The register is a complement to regulatory reporting, not a replacement for it. Where an incident is the subject of an active regulatory investigation, submitters should normally wait until the investigation is concluded before submitting, to avoid any conflict with that process.

What is rejected

• Submissions outside the asset scope: portable devices, e-bikes and e-scooters, vehicles, and consumer products with a small solar cell; data centre outages caused only by software, networks, cooling or a cloud provider's systems
• Submissions without clear lessons learned
• Submissions that cannot be sufficiently anonymised without losing the lesson
• Submissions whose primary function is commercial criticism, vendor disparagement, or competitive intelligence
• Submissions where the lesson is sector-specific to the point of being irrelevant to the wider industry
• Submissions where the submitter does not appear to have been authorised to share the information

Reporting

The statistics page is the register's live report: entries published, provisional, taken off after review, verified records, and pipeline health, updated daily. Corrections are logged on the corrections page. A summary of each year (submissions received, entries published and removed, methodology changes, governance and funding) will be published on the register once it has a full year behind it, the first covering 2026.

How cost and downtime estimates are made

How each entry's cost and downtime estimate is worked out, and how a real figure replaces it. Since 8 October 2026 the estimate is made the way a loss adjuster would make it: the entry is read, the damaged equipment identified and priced item by item, and a best figure given with a range.

What it covers

• Damage to the asset itself, in pounds, as a range: the equipment that was damaged, at its replacement cost in the year of the incident.
• Downtime, in days, as a range: how long the site was out of service or, for grid equipment, how long the power supply was cut. Replacing the damaged equipment itself can take much longer.

Not included: lost revenue, damage to other property (a building under a rooftop array, homes near a substation), clean-up, fines and legal costs. Events that damage many assets at once, such as a hurricane or a national grid collapse, are not priced from one entry and say so.

How it is worked out

1. The facts are read from the entry. Each entry is read once, and read again whenever it changes, to record: whether the installation is a home, a business or a utility-scale site; exactly what was damaged (a battery container, an inverter, a whole turbine, a blade, a transformer, a cable); how many; how badly (destroyed, badly damaged, partly damaged, slightly damaged); and any capacity, voltage, turbine rating or transformer rating the reporting gives. Nothing is guessed at this step: a number the reporting does not give stays blank.
2. A figure the source states comes first. Where the reporting or the verified record states what the damage cost, that figure is shown, marked as reported, with what it covers. Figures in other currencies are converted at the European Central Bank rate of the day.
3. Otherwise it is priced item by item. From the entry and the size fields of its record: what was damaged and how badly, repair or replace for each component, and each item at the prices of that year and country: the equipment, transport, cranes or vessels, specialist labour, testing, clean-up. The result is a best figure and the narrowest range expected to hold at four chances in five, with the reasoning and every assumption made. Where the entry names the site or the operator, what is known about them may be used, and the estimate says so.
4. The range is then widened by a factor set from a test against real figures (below). The best figure is not changed.
5. A formula checks it. The older rule-based estimate (the reference prices below, applied to what the entry says was damaged) is still worked out for every entry. Where the item-by-item range and the formula's do not come within ten times of each other, the confidence shown is low.

Confidence

Every estimate carries one of four labels, shown to everyone beside the band.

• Reported figure: the source states what the damage cost; that figure is shown instead of an estimate.
• High confidence: the reporting gives the size of what was damaged and how badly, so the range is narrow.
• Medium confidence: the equipment and the scale (home, business or utility) are known, and the size is typical for that kind of asset.
• Low confidence: the reporting gives little detail, so the range is wide.

The reference prices

The item-by-item estimate is checked against these, and the formula uses them directly.

How well it works

Checked on 27 September 2026 against every verified record on the register where a source states the real figure.

• Losses (8 October 2026, the item-by-item estimate): tested against 40 entries whose sources state the loss, hidden from the estimate: 26 fell inside its raw range and 35 within a factor of three, at a typical width of 2.3 times from bottom to top; the range shown is widened by 1.4 about its middle so that four in five fall inside. The older formula on the same entries: 22 of 39 inside at a typical width of 9.4 times. Most of the misses are cases where the reported figure includes things the estimate leaves out, such as the building under a rooftop array or the farm around a battery, or national fire-service figures that record book value rather than replacement cost.
• Downtime: 41 of 42 reported downtimes fell inside the estimated range.
• Precision: the typical range shown is now about 4.5 times from bottom to top, with a best figure beside it; the formula alone gave about 11 times, and keywords in the title about 60.
• 42 entries show the figure their source states instead of an estimate.
• A hurricane that damaged a whole region's grid was correctly left unpriced.

The check runs again every day as new figures are reported, and the ranges are wide where the reporting is thin. An estimate is a starting point for a question, not a valuation, and it is never a finding about who was at fault.

Currency

Estimates are worked out in pounds. Subscribers also see the range in the currency of the country where the incident happened, converted at the European Central Bank's reference rate of the date shown. Where the European Central Bank publishes no rate for that currency, the second figure is in US dollars.

Know the real figure?

If you own, insure or ran the asset, or you have seen the figure in a published source, email editor@energyincidentregister.com with the entry's reference and where the figure comes from. Once checked, the real figure replaces the estimate.

Who sees what

Every entry page shows that a figure exists, whether it is reported or estimated, and how confident it is. Subscribers see the figure itself: the range in pounds and in local currency, the downtime in days, and how each estimate was worked out. Plans start with a 14 day free trial.

Limitations

These are the things the register cannot tell you. They are listed here rather than buried because a reader who does not know them will draw wrong conclusions from the counts.

• It records what was reported, not what happened. An incident that nobody wrote about is not in the register. Countries with open reporting and technologies that attract press attention are over-represented, and a company with a larger installed base will appear more often than a smaller one for that reason alone.
• English language sources dominate. Coverage of incidents reported only in other languages is thinner, and that is a gap we are working on rather than one we have closed.
• Counts are not rates. The register knows the capacity of sites that had an incident. It does not know the installed fleet behind them, so it does not publish incidents per gigawatt, and any figure of that kind taken from these counts would be wrong.
• A rising line usually means better collection. Recent years look worse than older ones largely because reporting and our own coverage have improved. Do not read a trend chart here as a trend in industry safety.
• Depth varies by entry. Some entries rest on one report and some on six. Each one says which, and the paid record shows every source used.
• It is not a regulatory record. Nothing here substitutes for a formal investigation, and the register does not assign blame or determine cause. Where a cause is given, it is what the cited sources reported.