The Netherlands Labour Authority said this week that solar panel installers were involved in 40 accidents throughout the country over the last 18 months.
“The Labor Authority believes that more attention should be paid to safety in this sector and will increase the number of inspections,” it said in a statement, noting that there have also been four casualties over the past three years.
Around 80% of the accidents were related to installers falling from rooftops or through the actual roofs.
“In more than half of the cases, the victims suffered one or more bone fractures,” the authority stated. “In 20% of the cases they suffered a head injury and in 10% of the cases the installers suffered permanent injuries from the accident.”
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It conducted more than 150 inspections and accident investigations and applied fines to companies that violated Dutch legislation on working conditions.
“We estimate that the chance of an accident is at least 100 times smaller if an installer works according these working conditions,” says Inspector General Rits de Boer.
Rooftop PV development is booming in the Netherlands under its net-metering regime. The country's cumulative installed PV capacity hit 16.85 GW at the end of June 2022. In the first six months of last year, the country added 1,946 MW of new PV systems, according to official statistics from CBS – Statistics Netherlands.
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The headline of the article is misleading and undermines the reliability of the portal – it should be changed.
In the article we can read only about falls from heights of assembly teams. This should be compared with the work statistics of roofing teams. It has nothing to do with PV itself in any way.
The article does not mention a single accident caused by PV.
Hey Grzegorz, all accidents occurred during the installation of a PV system and, unfortunately, it has a lot to do with PV itself. Our industry should not be afraid of similar reports and work to increase safety standards.