Advanced Flame Retardant Strategies and Fire Performance Assessment for Safer Photovoltaics in Buildings: A Two-Part Review

As global decarbonization accelerates the need for extensive solar photovoltaic deployment, land-use conflicts have become increasingly pressing. Integrating PV into the built environment emerges as an effective strategy to mitigate these challenges by generating electricity where it is consumed. However, the polymeric encapsulant—a core material in photovoltaic (PV) modules—introduces critical fire safety concerns, particularly in building applications with strict regulatory requirements. This review addresses the issue with a dual approach. First, it presents various solutions to mitigate fire hazards, such as the incorporation of flame retardants, and defines five families of the latter solutions. Despite the central role of the encapsulant in module flammability, little research has focused on the use of flame retardants in photovoltaic modules. Then, a review of the existing standards and testing approaches that can be used for the assessment of building-integrated photovoltaic fire safety is presented. Based on the findings, a methodology for the evaluation of the fire performance is also proposed, with this framework evaluated at both the material and module levels.