Belgium reveals results of PV cable assessment

Belgium’s Federal Public Service (FPS) Economy, the country’s market surveillance authority, published last week the results of a PV cable inspection and testing campaign conducted in 2024.

The authority said the campaign had two objectives: to verify compliance with the requirements of Regulation (EU) No. 305/2011 and to prevent unfair competition.

“As part of the sampling and testing campaign, PV cable samples were collected for laboratory analysis,” FPS Economy said. “The tests were intended to determine whether the performance characteristics reported by manufacturers in their Declarations of Performance (DoPs) corresponded with results obtained by a notified body.”

Testing was carried out by Belgium’s Scientific Institute of Public Service (ISSeP), an accredited laboratory.

The assessment covered PV cables from 10 undisclosed manufacturers. Five cables had a cross-section of 4 mm² and five had a cross-section of 6 mm².

An initial administrative compliance check found that all 10 cables carried CE markings and were accompanied by DoPs, with no significant documentation issues identified.

The cables were then subjected to reaction-to-fire testing under applicable European standards. Under the European classification system for electrical cables, Cca and Dca indicate different levels of contribution to the development and spread of fire, with Cca representing better fire performance than Dca.

Laboratory testing revealed significant discrepancies between declared and measured performance. Only one of the 10 cables achieved the Cca reaction-to-fire class declared by its manufacturer. The remaining nine were classified as Dca in the ISSeP tests, despite manufacturers declaring them as Cca.

FPS Economy subsequently contacted the manufacturers of the nine cables and asked them to provide evidence supporting their declared classifications. The manufacturers submitted additional test reports from accredited notified laboratories based on samples from the same production batches.

“Those results supported the manufacturers’ declared fire classifications,” the authority said. “Consequently, FPS Economy decided not to pursue the cases further.”