For solar installers
Solar safety file
Roof work and DC electrical at once — and the panels are live whenever the sun is up.
Generate your safety file — R500What the law requires
There is no separate safety file law for solar installers. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Construction Regulations 2014 are national and trade-neutral — they apply to solar work exactly as they apply to every other trade on a South African site, with no minimum project size exemption.
What changes with the trade is the content. The regulations require the file to reflect the work actually being carried out, so the risk assessments, method statements, appointments and registers in a solar file are driven by the hazards solar installers actually create.
Why a solar file is different
Solar PV combines two serious hazards that most trades meet separately: working at height, and an electrical supply that cannot be switched off. A module in daylight generates whether or not anything is connected, and DC arcs do not self-extinguish the way AC does. South Africa's loadshedding-driven installation boom has put a lot of crews on roofs quickly.
What to get right in a solar safety file
These are the hazards that should be reflected properly in the risk assessments and method statements — the parts of the file that are easiest to leave generic and hardest to defend when they are.
DC cannot be isolated from the source
Panels produce voltage whenever light falls on them. You can isolate downstream, but the array itself stays live, so working on strings means treating conductors as energised and covering modules where practical. This is the single most misunderstood hazard in the trade.
Roof work with equipment in hand
Installers carry panels and rails across roofs — often fragile sheeting or tile — while managing cabling. Fall protection has to account for hands that are full and for load being moved at height, which a generic working-at-height assessment does not cover.
Structural load on the existing roof
An array adds sustained dead load and significant wind uplift to a structure designed before anyone considered it. Confirming the roof can carry the system is an engineering question, and the assessment belongs in the file alongside the mounting details.
Also governed by: Electrical Installation Regulations 2009
A grid-tied or hybrid installation carries a Certificate of Compliance duty, issued by a registered person.
Documents a solar scope typically triggers
On top of the core compliance pack every construction file carries, solar installers should expect to need these. The exact set depends on your scope.
- —Electrical lock-out procedure; electrical method statement and risk assessment
- —Equipment installation method statement and baseline risk assessment
- —Working at heights policy and procedure; fall protection plan developer appointment (CR 10.1)
- —Safety harness inspector appointment; fall protection equipment (FPE) inspection checklist and issue register
- —Portable electrical tools checklist; PPE issue register
- —Certificate of Compliance; structural confirmation of the roof from a competent engineer
*Items marked * are records you obtain from third parties and file alongside the documents MySafetyFile generates.
Can solar panels be made safe by switching off the inverter?
No, and this misunderstanding causes real injuries. Switching the inverter off isolates downstream of the array, but the modules keep generating voltage for as long as light falls on them. Work on the DC side has to treat those conductors as live, which is why covering modules and a written DC isolation procedure belong in the file.
More background: what a construction safety file is and what a compliant template must contain.
Get your solar safety file in 8 minutes
MySafetyFile generates a complete, site-specific construction safety file — drawn from a library of 351 documents across 9 categories — in about 8 minutes for R500. Register free, enter your project and scope, and download a file that is ready to print or submit. There is no monthly fee, and one account handles unlimited projects.
Every document is aligned with the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014, developed by a SAIOSH-registered practitioner, and carries a unique identification code that ties it to the account and project it was generated for.