In Romania, there is no quality standard for the installation of photovoltaic panels and battery energy storage systems at residential level, which creates a chaotic situation, said Adrian Paraschiv, Country Manager Photomate Romania, at the conference “Stepping stones for the BESS technologies development”, organised by Energynomics.
“Storage is already marching forward in true workers’ revolution style, so to speak, not just in Romania, but all over Europe, because it’s the fastest solution to network problems. Storage has become inescapable. At the end of last year, the UK introduced a new standard which clearly states that lithium-ion technology batteries will not be installed in habitable areas. The same standard also exists in the United States, which leads me to believe that the European Union will soon adopt the same conditions for the use of batteries. However, Romania does not accept the installation of lithium batteries in enclosed spaces which cannot be ventilated and where access in the event of an incident is impossible. So this is a first step, but it is not implemented at residential level. There is chaos at residential level,” Paraschiv said.
He added that there are a lot of companies on the market with no expertise that deliver such solutions, but do not offer monitoring or extinguishing systems for potential fires. According to Mr Paraschiv, installing storage batteries in the wrong places can cause serious problems for owners.
“Batteries should be stored in an annexe to the house, in a technical area, so that in the event of a thermal runaway, the smoke and heat released does not affect the habitable area. I was just looking at that, residentially, we are seeing the installation of self-piercing photovoltaic systems through the panel frame. In a year or two, in addition to the risk of fire caused by a short-circuit, the beneficiaries of these installations will no longer have access to the photovoltaic system, because I do not see it working for very long. So, effectively, there is no quality standard in Romania. Moreover, as far as the execution of photovoltaic installations is concerned, we have no standards for batteries. We have standards for inverters, we have standards for equipment, but we don’t have standards for the execution of the work,” Paraschiv said.
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Also, in the next two to three years, projects built in 2010-2012, which have now reached the end of their lifespan, will start to require retrofitting. According to Paraschiv, retrofitting these projects without adding storage units “doesn’t make much sense”.
The conference “Stepping stones for the BESS technologies development” was organised by Energynomics with the support of our partners: AJ Brand, Alive Capital, BCR, Big Store, Elektra Renewable Support, EnergoBit, Enery, Enevo Group, Enexus. EVOLVE Energy Management Solutions, Huawei, Nofar Energy, Photomate, Prime Batteries Technology, Pixii AS, Renomia Gallagher, smartPulse, SolarToday, SolaX Power, Think Blu Solution, Wiren, WTW Romania, YEO.