From our Norfolk & Suffolk branch
Join us for this free, online webinar event from our Norfolk and Suffolk branch. This event hopes to identify risk profiles that can contribute to PV fires, understand what contributes to fire spread understand preventative measures to reduce the risk of fire starting, and to reduce the impact of any fires by containing fire spread.
Description
The push for a greener built environment is transforming the built environment at an unpresented speed and scale. While offering substantial benefits for energy and climate goals, this transformation will inevitably introduce new fire risks. Thus, as we redesign buildings to meet climate goals, we must also rethink fire regulations to address these evolving risks, one of which is PV systems on roofs. However, current national fire codes mainly see this equipment as a simple add-on to existing buildings rather than as a new system with a completely changed fire safety level and fire performance. As a result, test standards for their implementation have not been developed and the systems have not had their fire risks sufficiently assessed. Thus, it is essential to carry out research that yields knowledge of and solutions for the problems to ensure a safe and just implementation of the green transition. This need is also very urgent due to the time pressure introduced by the fast implementation plan for PV systems on roofs. FRISSBE ZAG has carried out a large number of relevant tests, and the talk will present findings from these and provide recommendations for improving the fire safety of roofs with PV systems.
About the speakers
Grunde Jomaas is the FRISSBE ERA Chair holder and the Head of the Department for Research for Fire-Safe Sustainable Environment at the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG). He is also a professor at the University of Primorska in the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies (FAMNIT). Professor Jomaas has a BSc (Summa Cum Laude) in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland (2001) and a MSc (2005) and PhD (2008) in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.