The green transition is storming forward in municipalities, carried by strong political tailwinds. In fact, the development is going so fast that legislation is having difficulty keeping up.
This is shown by a new report from Danish Emergency Services, which describes how neither fire regulations nor building legislation follow the rollout of new technologies. This means that municipalities often have to make decisions based on guidelines, estimates and local interpretation, knowing full well that the consequences can be serious if something goes wrong.
- Safety should have been considered from the start. Instead, they built first and thought that the regulations could probably come later, but we never got there, says Bjarne Nigaard, head of secretariat at Danish Emergency Services, to DK Nyt. He elaborates:
- If, for example, a hydrogen tank at a Power-to-X plant breaks, you get a 40-meter-long, invisible flame. How do we handle that? We are not ready for that.
Solar cells fall outside fire safety
One of the most widespread challenges is solar cell systems.
Solar panels are not legally considered an integral part of the building, but rather as movable property, and they are therefore not covered by the existing rules for construction and fire safety. This makes it difficult to set requirements for location, access routes, extinguishing conditions and fire-related classification, the report says.
According to the Danish Emergency Services, this particularly concerns solar cells mounted on roofs with cavities under the panels, as they can accelerate the development of a fire and make fire extinguishing significantly more complex and risky.
The lack of standards also means that installations vary in quality, which increases the uncertainty of an effort.
At the same time, the EU's revised Buildings Directive (EPBD) introduces requirements for the integration of solar energy in buildings where possible. However, until the directive is implemented in Danish legislation, regulation remains limited. There is no timetable yet.
Burners without oxygen
Battery systems (BESS) are also gaining ground in municipalities, where they are used on construction sites, industrial parks and for major events, among other things. And here the challenges are at least as complex. When batteries first burn, they develop large amounts of flammable and toxic gases and can continue without the supply of oxygen. In reality, the fire cannot be extinguished traditionally, but only controlled. This can lead to efforts lasting hours or days with the risk of explosion and prolonged evacuations.
There is no specific legislation regulating these risks. Instead, reference is made to the Danish Emergency Management Agency's guidance from 2023, which is not binding. This means that uniform protection and approval practices depend on the resources and competencies of the individual municipality.
- I can promise that no matter where we are in Denmark, our skilled, committed firefighters will do everything they can. But even good will and commitment are not enough if you are faced with an explosion in a large battery plant, where we are talking about a safety zone of several kilometers, says Bjarne Nigaard.
The Danish Emergency Management Agency informs DK Nyt that it is weighing up "the advantages of regulation and guidance, respectively. In areas such as the BESS area, the development of batteries is so rapid that it could necessitate a revision of the rules within a shorter period. In this context, it is more flexible to have guidance that can be revised if necessary."
Resources and skills under pressure
In the report, the Danish Emergency Management Agency reports on the need for special equipment, longer interventions, more frequent further training and greater involvement in the municipalities' planning and construction case processes.
It is particularly the relaxed fire requirements in the building legislation - driven by green transition, sustainability and debureaucratization - that create a risk of imbalance between the Building Act and the tasks of the Emergency Management Act.
The challenge is that it is the local emergency services that are on the front line. Even when the technology is new, the risks unclear, and the responsibility for safety is not precisely distributed.
- This is just one example of how when we prioritize some considerations with open eyes, it has consequences elsewhere, in this case for fire and personal safety, says Bjarne Nigaard.
The Danish Emergency Management Agency writes that it is in "ongoing dialogue with the Danish Emergency Services about the fire-related challenges experienced in connection with the rollout of, among other things, BESS, solar cell systems and PtX", and that the focus is on balancing the rescue services' wishes for further regulation with the consideration of regulatory simplification and not burdening businesses and citizens unnecessarily.
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