Short courses for the people who own, run, insure, lend against or regulate energy assets. Every lesson is written from entries on the register, each linking to its sources, and ends with questions. Each course ends with a certificate that anyone can check. Lesson 1 of every course is free with a free account. The rest of each course comes with the 7-day free trial and the plans.
What the certificate is. A certificate is issued when every lesson's questions are passed at 75 percent or more. It carries the course title, the study hours, the learning outcomes and a check code. Anyone can check the code on the certificate page. Each certificate is also an Open Badge that can be verified against this site, and can be added to a LinkedIn profile in one click.
The study hours may be recorded as self-directed continuing professional development under your professional body's rules. The register does not hold a formal CPD accreditation. The syllabus, outcomes and assessment method for every course are published below so a professional body or employer can judge the material as it stands.
Battery storage fires: the essentials
4 lessons · about 1.5 hours of study · questions on every lesson, pass mark 75 percent · certificate with a check code
How lithium-ion battery fires start, why some become explosions, what keeps a fire to one unit, and the risks in commissioning and in the weeks after a fire. Built on more than 25 battery storage incidents in the register.
Who it is for. Everyone. Start here if you are new to battery storage risk.
By the end of the course you will be able to
Explain thermal runaway and propagation in plain terms.
Describe why off gas makes a closed container dangerous, and the role of NFPA 855 and UL 9540A.
Judge a site's spacing, barriers, suppression and water supply against the register's evidence.
List the controls needed at commissioning, restart and after a fire.
Lessons
How a battery fire starts: thermal runaway (about 12 minutes)
Gas, explosions and the danger of opening the door (about 13 minutes)
Keeping it to one unit: spacing, barriers and suppression (about 14 minutes)
Commissioning, construction and the weeks after a fire (about 14 minutes)
3 lessons · about 1.5 hours of study · questions on every lesson, pass mark 75 percent · certificate with a check code · version 1.0, written 5 November 2026, next review 5 May 2027
To give anyone who owns, operates, insures, lends against or regulates a solar PV system a clear, evidence-based understanding of where solar fires start, why rooftop fires are hard to fight, how ground-mounted sites are hit by vegetation fires and weather, and what controls the incident record supports.
Who it is for. Asset owners and asset managers, O&M firms and their site crews, underwriters, brokers and risk engineers, lenders and technical advisers, planning officers and fire service liaison staff. No electrical qualification is needed. Before you start. None. The battery storage course is not required. Readers new to solar PV will find every technical term explained the first time it is used.
By the end of the course you will be able to
Explain why a DC fault can sustain an arc, and name the components and installation faults most often at the origin of a solar fire.
Explain why a rooftop array stays live in daylight, how an array fire spreads into a building, and what to give the fire service before an incident.
Set out the vegetation, firebreak and isolation controls for a ground-mounted site, and assess its exposure to hail, wind and water.
Judge how far a reported cause can be trusted, and apply the register's evidence to your own sites.
Lessons
Where solar fires start: connectors, isolators, inverters and the DC side (about 18 minutes)
Explain why a fault on the DC side of a solar system can sustain an arc and start a fire, when the same fault on the AC side usually would not.
Name the components that most often sit at the origin of a solar fire in the register, and the installation faults behind them.
Describe the checks at commissioning and in service that find these faults before they burn.
Judge how far a reported cause can be trusted, and what to ask for before acting on it.
Rooftop systems: why roof fires are hard to fight, and what owners can do (about 18 minutes)
Explain why a rooftop array stays live in daylight and what that means for the people fighting the fire.
Describe how a fire in an array spreads into the roof and the building, and the design features that stopped it in the register's cases.
List what a building owner must give the fire service before an incident, and what good practice looks like on occupied buildings such as schools and hospitals.
Set out the controls for the three riskiest moments in a rooftop system's life: construction, roof work and the years after installation.
Ground-mounted sites: grass, wildfire, weather and the people on site (about 18 minutes)
Explain how an electrical fault at a solar farm becomes a landscape fire, and the vegetation and firebreak controls the record supports.
Describe how a wildfire approaching a site is kept out, and what to inspect before re-energising afterwards.
Assess a site's exposure to hail, wind and water, including floating arrays, against the register's cases and the module standards.
Set out the arrangements for people on a solar site: isolation and proving dead, fire service liaison, and emergency response at remote sites.
Assessment. Each lesson ends with five questions. Each question tests one of the lesson's learning outcomes. The pass mark is 75 percent (four of five). You can retake the questions as often as you need. The certificate is issued when all three lessons are passed, and it carries the course title, the study time, the learning outcomes and a check code anyone can verify on the register.
Standards and further reading
IEC 62446-1, Photovoltaic (PV) systems: requirements for testing, documentation and maintenance. Part 1: grid connected systems The commissioning tests, the documentation an owner should hold, and the basis for periodic inspection.
IEC 62852, Connectors for DC application in photovoltaic systems The connector standard (it replaced EN 50521). Connectors from different makers should not be mated unless the maker states they are compatible.
IEC 61215 and IEC 61730, PV module design qualification and safety qualification Includes the standard hail test: 25 mm ice balls at 23 metres a second.
IEC 62109, Safety of power converters for use in photovoltaic power systems Inverter safety requirements.
BS 7671 Section 712 (United Kingdom) and the IEC 60364-7-712 series Wiring rules for PV installations, including DC isolation and labelling.
NFPA 70, National Electrical Code, Article 690 (United States) Including 690.11 arc-fault circuit protection and 690.12 rapid shutdown for buildings.
International Fire Code section 1204 and NFPA 1 chapter 11 (United States) Rooftop access pathways, setbacks and smoke ventilation around arrays.
RC62, Recommendations for fire safety with photovoltaic panel installations, RISCAuthority (United Kingdom) Insurer-led guidance on design, installation, isolation and firefighter information.
BRE National Solar Centre, Fires and solar PV systems: investigations and evidence (United Kingdom) The UK study of PV fires that found DC isolators and connectors at the origin of most of the fires it investigated.
AS/NZS 5033, Installation and safety requirements for photovoltaic (PV) arrays (Australia and New Zealand) Including the rooftop DC isolator requirements referred to in lesson 1.
Energy Safe Victoria, solar farm directions of February 2025 (Australia) Vegetation under arrays to be kept below 100 mm; the basis of the standing control in lesson 3.
How this course was made
Every lesson was written from entries published on the Energy Incident Register, each of which is written from named public sources and reviewed before publication under the register's methodology. Every incident named in a lesson links to its entry, where the sources are listed. Where a cause is alleged, disputed or not established, the lesson says so. The register's editor is responsible for the content. Standards are cited by name so readers can check the current edition that applies in their country.
3 lessons · about 1 hours of study · questions on every lesson, pass mark 75 percent · certificate with a check code
How UPS batteries fail, why maintenance and works are the riskiest hours, and how battery room design decides whether a fire becomes a long outage. Built on more than 20 data centre incidents in the register.
Who it is for. Data centre operators, facilities managers, insurers and brokers with data centre exposure.
By the end of the course you will be able to
Describe the failure modes of lead-acid and lithium-ion UPS batteries.
Set the controls needed for maintenance, switchover and testing work.
Assess battery room separation, suppression and water supply.
Check that failover does not depend on the building that has failed.
Lessons
What sits in a UPS battery room, and how it fails (about 12 minutes)
Maintenance, testing and works: the riskiest hours (about 13 minutes)
When the battery room burns: separation, suppression and keeping the service up (about 14 minutes)
Reading an incident report How to read a register entry with care: what a source can and cannot tell you, the difference between a stated cause and a finding, and how to spot patterns across entries.
Learning from energy asset incidents A twelve week course, one lesson a week, across battery storage, solar, wind, grid equipment and data centre power. Each lesson takes real incidents from the register and turns them into checks you can use on your own sites.
Incident risk for insurers and lenders A ten week course on using incident evidence in underwriting and due diligence. It covers loss patterns, design and product risk, business interruption, environmental liability and data centre exposure.
Battery and solar sites in planning: safety questions for councils A ten week course for councils deciding on battery storage and solar applications. It explains the risks in plain terms, how the NFCC guidance is used, and which questions and conditions are backed by real incidents.
Questions
Who writes the courses?
The register's editor, from the register's published entries. Every incident named in a lesson links to its entry, where the sources are listed. Where a cause is alleged, disputed or not established, the lesson says so.
How long does a course take?
Short courses take one to two hours and can be finished in a week. Every lesson states its reading time. Questions take about ten minutes a lesson.
Is the training CPD accredited?
No. The hours may be logged as self-directed CPD under your own professional body's rules, and the certificate states the hours and outcomes for that purpose. Formal accreditation is a possible later step; the material is published in full here so it can be assessed as it stands.
Can my team take a course?
Yes. A Team plan gives every seat the courses and the monthly crew briefing, and each person earns their own certificate. See the plans.
I run site crews. Is there something shorter?
Members receive a one-page crew safety briefing every month, built from recent incidents and written to be read out in a ten-minute toolbox talk.