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CEA Proposes Tighter Safety Standards for Solar PV and Wind Power Projects Photograph: (AI)
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed a detailed list of relevant Indian and international standards covering safety requirements for renewable-energy installations, with dedicated provisions for solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind power projects.
The draft list, prepared under the CEA (Measures relating to Safety and Electric Supply) Regulations, 2023 and their amendments, provides a more technology-specific framework for renewable-energy assets, covering areas ranging from electrical protection and PV module qualification to wind turbine safety and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
For the solar industry, Regulation 121 specifically addresses safety requirements for solar installations. The proposed standards cover earthing, lightning and over-voltage protection, combiner-box protection, PV module safety qualification, fire protection and additional requirements for floating solar projects. 
Under the draft, solar PV power plants would require appropriate earthing, with IS 3043 and IS 732 cited for earthing and electrical wiring practices. The proposed framework also requires solar PV plants to have lightning and over-voltage protection, including appropriate lightning arresters. Combiner boxes would need suitable surge-protection devices with arc-extinguishing capability to mitigate fire risks. 
The draft further specifies that PV modules should meet relevant safety-qualification standards. These include IS 14286, IS 16228, IS/IEC 61730-2 and IS 17210/IEC 62804-1, covering areas such as PV module qualification, safety testing and potential-induced degradation (PID) testing. 
For developers and EPC companies, the provisions could translate into greater emphasis on documented equipment qualification, electrical protection and safety systems during project design and commissioning.
The draft also recognises the specific environmental challenges associated with floating solar. PV modules and associated structures used in floating solar projects would need to comply with relevant standards for salt-mist corrosion, ammonia corrosion, environmental stress cracking of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and tensile properties of plastics.
This is significant as floating solar deployment expands across reservoirs and other water bodies, where corrosion and long-term structural durability present different risks compared with conventional ground-mounted PV projects.
The draft also contains explicit provisions for wind energy installations. It states that all wind-energy generation systems—including wind turbines and onshore and offshore wind power plants connected to the grid—would have to comply with relevant standards. Transformers used for wind turbine applications would similarly have to meet applicable standards.
The draft references IS/IEC 61400 for wind turbine safety.  For India’s expanding wind sector, this establishes a specific standards reference for turbine and wind-plant safety rather than relying only on generic electrical-safety provisions.
Although the draft’s BESS provisions extend beyond solar and wind generation, they are particularly relevant to renewable projects as solar-plus-storage and hybrid renewable-energy projects become more common.
The proposed provisions cover BESS testing, fire and explosion protection, battery containers, equipment spacing, thermal management, hazard detection, automatic fire suppression and earthing. Battery testing would cover cell and module-level requirements, while fire and explosion protection would extend from the cell and module level to the container and site level. 
The draft also proposes requirements for ventilation and cooling systems for BESS to ensure proper thermal management. Hazard-detection systems would cover smoke, gas, heat and flame, while battery containers would require automatic fire-suppression systems.
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