PV-related rooftop fires – national statistics and the impact of reporting methodsRus, Nik (Avtor) Puccia, Vincenzo (Avtor) Jug, Aleš (Avtor) Jomaas, Grunde (Avtor) fire safetyphotovoltaic systemsstatisticsPV-related fires have caused significant property damage over the last decade, and their numbers are still rising, thus potentially undermining solar power's intended contributions towards sustainability. Robust solutions are needed to ensure risk reduction, and incident reporting is an important part of the risk analysis process. Statistics on the adverse events provide a good insight into the more prevalent failure modes and establish the failure frequency. An assessment of the data on PV-related fires shows that Italy can expect about 10 fires per GW annually, while Slovenia can expect about 37 fires per GW annually, compared to a previously established number for an international average of 29 fires per GW. Although the rates for both countries are in the same order of magnitude as the international average, the differences can be attributed to different methods of data collection, as well as to some differences in legislation and installation requirements in the two countries. Importantly, while acceptable risk levels are typically in the order of 10⁻⁶, the observed rates are in the order of 10⁻⁴, which is in a range that demands immediate risk management actions.Institute of Physics Publishing20252025-11-28 10:24:23Neznano24443sl© authors, 2025