More than 60% of battery system installation work inspected under a federal government green energy program is substandard and 1.2% unsafe, according to a recent report by the Clean Energy Regulator.
The Cheaper Home Batteries Program has proved hugely popular. More than a quarter of a million small-scale battery systems have now been installed under it. This equates to 7.7 gigawatt hours of installed storage capacity.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, says this “means less pressure at peak times, more reliability, and a cleaner, more affordable energy system”.
But the installation compliance and safety problems highlighted by the regulator’s report risk not only battery storage growth and the credibility of the scheme, but also public safety.
48V is low voltage in every jurisdiction, isn’t high enough for dry skin conduction, and 99% of these installations will run on that. The need to run every inch in conduit is goofy. This is less about safety and more about code that exists to increase costs.
I can see running the solar input in conduit, perhaps, but then we might be talking 500V in order to use smaller gauge wire.
It’s to limit the risk of mechanical damage. As an auto electrician, no way would I accept runs of unprotected battery cables (that is, only with their PVC insulation) in a fixed install. Too much shit can go wrong over the 10 year lifespan of these setups.
On a big battery system you need 150+ amps of fault current before the DC breakers even think about tripping. At 48 volts that’s burn-your-garage-down territory if you get a nail or a shovel edge or a rat nibble across your cables that “only” pulls a hundred amps.
It’s not the voltage, it’s the amperage. And we’re talking DC here, not AC.
bro I=V/R
You throw an arc fault on AC and all sorts of safety protections and circuit breakers kick in to kill it before anything happens. You do it on a DC battery and you get fire.