Solar Farm Fire Risk Assessment and Fire Safety Consultancy

Project Overview

New Terra Compliance was appointed to provide specialist fire risk assessment and fire safety consultancy services for an operational UK solar farm development.

Unlike conventional buildings, solar farms comprise distributed electrical infrastructure, multiple service and plant rooms, and outdoor energy assets operating continuously. While often perceived as low-risk, these developments fall within the scope of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 as workplaces, requiring suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and fire safety management arrangements.

Our role was to assess fire risk across the site, review organisational fire safety arrangements, and provide pragmatic, sector-appropriate recommendations aligned with both life safety and operational resilience.

Scope of Services

• Client workshop to review organisational fire safety management arrangements

• Review of fire safety policies and procedures, including emergency response and first-aid fire-fighting

• Fire Risk Assessment of the solar farm development in accordance with the Fire Safety Order

• Identification of site-specific fire hazards associated with renewable energy infrastructure

• Development of a prioritised, risk-based action plan

• Presentation of findings and recommendations to the client’s health and safety team

Key Fire Safety Challenges

Organisational Fire Safety Management

A key challenge identified during the client workshop was the alignment between organisational fire safety policy and site-specific risk. In particular, there was an established policy requiring immediate evacuation of electrical buildings in the event of fire, with no expectation of first-aid fire-fighting.

While appropriate in many high-energy environments, this approach required careful consideration in the context of:

• Small, enclosed electrical service rooms

• Early-stage electrical faults

• Availability of trained personnel

Our review focused on ensuring that policies were risk-appropriate, clearly defined, and supported by training and procedures, rather than applying a blanket approach that could unintentionally increase risk or operational impact.

Site-Specific Fire Hazards

The fire risk assessment considered hazards unique to solar energy developments, including:

• Electrical faults within DC strings and inverter equipment

• Arc flash and high-energy electrical failure modes

• Potential for fire spread through vegetation during dry conditions

• Fire risk within inverter stations, transformers, and auxiliary service rooms

• Access, detection, and emergency response challenges across large outdoor sites

Our Approach

We adopted a risk-based and proportionate approach, recognising that solar farms cannot be assessed or managed in the same way as traditional buildings.

The assessment focused primarily on life safety, while also acknowledging the wider impacts of fire on:

• Asset damage

• Business continuity

• Revenue loss associated with solar array downtime

Our recommendations were deliberately pragmatic, balancing safety, operability, and maintainability, and avoiding unnecessary controls that would offer limited risk reduction, whilst meeting legal duties.

Outcome

The findings were presented to the client’s health and safety team alongside a clear, prioritised action plan, setting out practical measures to reduce fire risk and improve fire safety management across the site.

While life safety remained the primary driver, the work also supported asset protection and business continuity, recognising the commercial and operational importance of minimising downtime and maintaining generation capacity.

Fire risk assessment and fire safety consultancy for solar farms, renewable energy assets, inverter stations, and utility-scale electrical infrastructure.