Solar Nerd articles about: Safety

Solar panels are extremely safe. According to data from Germany, only 120 fires out of 1.4 million solar installations have been traced back to solar equipment. Compared to the 44,000 electrical fires that occur in the United States every year, the risk of fire caused by solar equipment is very low. However, a greater hazard is the risk of live wires to firefighters who might need to work near solar equipment during an emergency.

There’s a lot of myths when it comes to lightning, such as lightning never striking the same place twice, or that using an umbrella in a storm puts you at greater risk of being hit by lightning. It’s understandable: lightning is a mysterious force of nature to many, and it’s also destructive, causing over $1 billion in property damage in the United States every year. When it comes to solar panels, there’s one persistent myth, which is that putting solar panels on your home can actually attract lightning to your home.

As you probably know, solar panels turn sunlight into clean electricity: they’re totally silent, and don’t release any pollution. Even though solar electricity is clean, you might wonder about the solar panels themselves. What exactly is under that sheet of glass? If you’re a homeowner who is thinking about putting solar panels on your roof, are you putting the health of your family at risk by installing dangerous or toxic materials on your home?

On a sunny day, the solar panels on the roof of your home might be generating thousands of watts of power. Have you ever wondered if this could be a fire risk? By itself, a few thousand watts of electricity running across your roof isn’t a risk. After all, there’s already a fat utility cable that runs from a utility pole or underground conduit into your home that carries up to a couple hundred amps of electricity.

One of the stranger myths about solar panels is that they cause cancer. The reasons given is that solar panels leak toxins or emit dangerous radiation. Neither of these are true. Solar panels do not cause cancer. A solar array doesn’t emit any more RF radiation than the electrical wires already in your home do. In any case, there is no established connection between non-ionizing RF radiation and cancer. Also, the electricity generated by solar panels is direct current (DC), which doesn’t generate electromagnetic fields like AC-carrying wires do.