South Korea's Ministry of Education will tighten safety management of solar power equipment at schools, shortening the mandatory inspection cycle to once a year from once every four years and adding thermal imaging to the list of checks.
The ministry said on the 14th that it will sign an agreement with the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation to secure the safety of solar installations at schools.
The agreement follows up on safety measures included in the ministry's "Sunlight Link School" project plan announced in February. Under the deal, the two organizations will cooperate on shortening inspection cycles, expanding the scope of inspections, providing technical support and conducting safety management training.
Under the current Electrical Safety Management Act, solar installations must be inspected by the Korea Electrical Safety Corporation at least once every four years. Under the new agreement, schools covered by the Sunlight Link School project will undergo mandatory inspections every year, at a cost of about 200,000 won annually. The inspections will also include thermal imaging measurements, which were not part of the existing legal requirements.
The Korea Electrical Safety Corporation plans to expand its inspection staff and equipment to handle the increase in demand and to ensure inspections proceed without delays. The shorter inspection cycle will apply first to schools in the Sunlight Link School project, and the ministry is reviewing whether to extend it to other schools with solar installations.
"Safety matters more than anything else, given that the Sunlight Link School project is expanding solar installations at schools," Education Minister Choi Kyo-jin said. "We will use this agreement to build a tighter safety management system for school solar equipment, and we will continue to come up with ways to strengthen safety while minimizing the burden on schools."