String of fires prompts Amazon to temporarily shut down solar rooftops at US facilities – IOTW Report

String of fires prompts Amazon to temporarily shut down solar rooftops at US facilities

Tuesday, 6 September 2022, 10:15 MJA Uncategorized 22

BPR:

Amazon decided to suspend the use of the massive solar panel arrays installed at its fulfillment centers last year because they kept catching on fire.

Internal documents acquired by CNBC revealed that “critical fire or arc flash events” have occurred at six different North American facilities, accounting for around 12.7 percent of Amazon’s buildings. The documents were never made public.

“Out of an abundance of caution, following a small number of isolated incidents with onsite solar systems owned and operated by third parties, Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar installations in North America, and took immediate steps to re-inspect each installation by a leading solar technical expert firm,” Amazon spokesperson Erika Howard said in a statement.

“The rate of dangerous incidents is unacceptable, and above industry averages,” another Amazon employee wrote in an internal report, according to the outlet. more

22 Comments on String of fires prompts Amazon to temporarily shut down solar rooftops at US facilities

  4. “… by a leading solar technical expert firm …”

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Snake oil salesmen in suits.

    I take it these aren’t water/glycol systems?

    We (the FedGov) had one installed on the roof of the Ford Building in ’76 or so – IT NEVER FUCKING WORKED! AND CONSUMED THOUSANDS OF MAN-HOURS AND MATERIAL RESOURCES UNTIL IT WAS FINALLY DISMEMBERED. And on decommissioning we threw away hundreds of silver-lined hand-blown glass tubes.
    “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

    mortem tyrannis
    izlamo delenda est …

    13

  5. We can figure out why solar panels catch fire with logic. According to brainwashing news sources, wildfires start when ambient temperatures exceed triple digits because of climate change, or something. Your average roof, in direct sunlight, will exceed triple digits when the ambient temperature exceeds 80 degrees. Hence solar panels on rooftops ignite, also because of climate change. Therefore we should ban solar panels on rooftops until we can get this whole climate crisis under control.

    4

  6. “Out of an abundance of caution, following a small number of isolated incidents with onsite solar systems owned and operated by third parties, Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar installations in North America, and took immediate steps to re-inspect each installation by a leading solar technical expert firm,” Amazon spokesperson Erika Howard said in a statement.

    Good job, Erika. Minimize the problem, blame it on someone else, then attempt to correct the problem by using someone else you can blame it on when it happens again (and it will).

    9

  8. 1 in 8 burning up isn’t a small number. It is almost Russian Roulette.

    Heck, that’s bigger than the number of Boy Scouts successfully starting a fire when they need to during camp.

    6

  9. The solar array I built 20 years ago in my back yard tracks the sun during the day, 26% more efficient. Battery bank is in my shop with just a 4000 watt sine-wave inverter that runs the lighting. I have never had a fire. Wiring runs underground to the shop. I make PCB boards using isolation routing to cut the circuits out and drill.

    4

  11. @Tim,
    as I recall, it took a REAL MAN in the White House to trash Jimmuh Carter’s garbage: Pres Ronald Reagan.

    Question for the gang: Will we see the EPA (and OSHA) man up and require Amazon to follow their rules and do a full and proper revetment, retrieving and properly disposing of ALL toxic/hazardous elements that are now contaminating a workplace??

    5

  12. …just to draw your attention to ONE part of the link above…

    “3. Be smart about ventilation tactics: If the incident commander (IC) calls for vertical ventilation to help interior crews complete their life saving functions, firefighters need to be aware of two important facts. First, electricity can be produced by the solar panels day or night depending on the light source. In a UL study, 800V and 340mA were measured coming from a 1000V array at night. The light source creating this electricity was from apparatus spotlights directed at the solar panels. With the capability of solar panels to create electricity day or night that travels through conduit, firefighters should not cut, damage or touch any part of the system.

    Second, if the conduit is hidden, which it normally is for aesthetic reasons, a firefighter cutting a hole in a roof unaware of the conduit’s location could easily be exposed to an electrical shock. The simplest and safest strategy is for firefighters to stay off the roof. They should be instructed to not touch the panels or conduit and only vertically ventilate if they can locate a stable part of the roof that is clear of the solar panels and conduit.

    If a roof is discovered to have multiple solar panels covering the majority of it, the IC should immediately consider using vent, enter, isolate, search (VEIS) or horizontal ventilation.”

    …sooo, your poorly designed, not thought out knee jerk reaction to a fake political problem also makes it MUCH more difficult to even SAVE YOUR LIFE by hiding conduits and each cell covering the roof having enough life of its own that even a spotlight on it can shock a guy off the roof.

    Nice.

    …when you ventilate a roof, the idea is to guide the heat, fire, and smoke AWAY from the univolved areas, and the BEST and QUICKEST way to do that is to cut the hole RIGHT OVER THE FIRE. Failing to do this just spreads the fire, and failing to do this QUICKLY endangers interior crews and greatly hinders SAR operations, which may result in deaths of occupants and firefighters alike.

    But if you have a charged grid you can’t turn OFF where the fire is, you can’t do that.

    Look for more structures to be written off because of this in the near future.

    There will be deaths too, but politicians and political fire cheifs will lie about them.

    Can’t hurt the narrative, doncha know…

    5

  13. CraZy Leftists will get us all killed off
    SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 AT 12:34 PM
    “@Tim,
    as I recall, it took a REAL MAN in the White House to trash Jimmuh Carter’s garbage: Pres Ronald Reagan.”

    …he did GREAT things to be sure, but RINOS and Dems played him on illegals with the same “Asylum NOW, reforms LATER” dodge they still use today, where “LATER” never comes.

    Also, because they got Reagan to sign a vaccine bill, that led directly to the COOF abonination of forcing children not at risk to be poisoned with the fake vaxxine.

    They HAVE to, to keep their liabilty protection that Ronnie signed…

    https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/09/04/50-reasons-to-give-your-child-the-covid-shot/

    So evil is always there, even under the greatest of men.

    Because they are only men.

    No man can protect you from all evil.

    It is each man’s responsibility to do it for his self.

    3

  19. “Out of an abundance of caution…”—-right out of the gate with the insipid jargon. Not a good start.

    “a small number of isolated incidents”—then why the abundance of caution? Doesn’t sound that bad.

    “solar systems owned and operated by third parties”—passing the buck, maybe?

    “Amazon proactively powered off our onsite solar”—No, you reactively powered them off. Just say you powered them off. No need for adverbs.

    “re-inspect each installation”—How about just “inspect”? The “re” just reminds us that the first inspection was not abundantly cautious.

    “leading solar technical expert firm”—Not good enough. I’d feel safer if it was a distinguished leading solar engineering technical expert detective firm doing the proactive re-inspections. But I’d really be impressed if you had proactively decided not to spend time and money putting expensive, virtue-signaling fire hazards on your rooftops in the first place.

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