With the recent car park fire at Luton Airport destroying up to 1,200 vehicles and injuring several firefighters who needed hospital treatment, electric vehicle battery fires and the spiralling insurance costs have hit the headlines.

Issued in July, by the UK Government, document T0194 covers car parks fire safety guidance for electric vehicles, supporting parking and/or charging of electric vehicles and the installation of electric vehicle charge points in covered car parks and details the risk of fire and offers mitigation measures for EV vehicle parking.

Some of these include:

Providing distance and fire-resistant construction between parking bays
Increasing the distance between parked electric vehicles and providing fire resistance construction between parking bays as this will reduce the likelihood of fire spread to the adjacent vehicles as it will provide a physical barrier to the spread of heat and flames between the cars.

This fire-resistant construction could be full or partial height but proposes potential reduced visibility, which should be accounted for in the design but is generally considered to be similar to the visibility drivers have when pulling out between two cars.

Provide appropriate structural fire resistance
Current guidance recommends 15 minutes structural fire resistance for some car park arrangements.

With the integration of electric vehicles within car parks, it could take up to 60 minutes for the fire service to extinguish the fire [20]. To account for this, a higher structural fire resistance period is needed, i.e. a minimum of 60 minutes should be considered, unless additional measures such as water-based suppression is also installed, or extensive fire damage can be tolerated without impacting the life safety of occupants or firefighters.

Provide certified and approved electric vehicle charge points (EVCP)
EVCPs should meet the minimum set of technical requirements as set out in BS EN 61851 and any other applicable regulations. A faulty EVCP may trigger a short-circuit within the EV battery or provide too much charge to the EV battery.

Both can lead to thermal runaway. Designers should consider choosing an EVCP which has overcurrent protection, tilt sensors, damage/fault reporting, temperature sensors and ventilation.

Reference to Section 6.1 should be made and stakeholders should put in place a maintenance regime for EVCP.

Provide a manual isolation switch to cut power supply of EVCP
If an electric car is on fire and charging, the continued supply of energy may increase the internal battery temperature and intensify reactions within the battery cell.

Cutting the supply of energy can control and reduce the likelihood of an energised electrical fire. This should be installed so it can be operated in a safe environment and clearly labelled to identify which charge points will be isolated.

Provide controlled speed limits in car park
Collisions which have enough impact to deform the battery pack within an electric vehicle may cause failure of the internal components of the battery. This may lead to a short-circuit and trigger thermal runaway of the EV battery.

Secure storage of vehicles
Where vehicles are known to be prone to mechanical abuse, e.g. police cars, consideration should be given to placing them in a secure/segregated parking area away from other vehicles or not allowing these EVs into covered car parks.

Provide crash protection to the EVCP
This could provide impact protection and as a result reduce the likelihood of faults developing in the EVCP.

This could be via bollards or physical barriers, designed in accordance with BS 6180:2011 [63] or PAS 68:2013 [64].

Routine inspections by a responsible organisation
Routine inspections can pick up faults/damage that the EVCP internal monitoring system is not able to identify. Consideration should be given to undertaking regular inspections of charge points.

Position the EVCP so that the charging cable can easily attach to EV with minimum length of cable
To reduce the risk of damage to the charging cables, the EVCP should be positioned so that charging cables do not lay where other vehicles can drive over them or in the main circulation space where people could trip or step on them.

Provide security systems to deter deliberate damage
Security cameras with clear signage and a management strategy can help to deter people deliberately damaging the EVCP.

Install Mode 3 or Mode 4 EVCP
Mode 3 and Mode 4 type EVCP have an inbuilt interface to monitor faults within the chargepoint.

EVCPs with the ability to monitor overcurrent protection, tilt sensors, damage/fault reporting, temperature sensors and ventilation are likely to terminate charging and prevent events leading to an uncontrolled fire. Refer to Section 6.1.2.

Remove the faulty EVCP immediately
Charging with a faulty EVCP could lead to a fire.

An EVCP may be found to be faulty either through routine inspections, self-damage/fault reporting, or reporting of visible faults by a member of the public or via CCTV. Faulty equipment should be reported to the manufacturer for rectification; the product safety body enforcing EVCP should also be notified.

Document T0194 guidance outlines fire safety considerations and measures that operators, designers, and owners of covered car parks (both new and existing) can take with regards to electric vehicles (EVs) or electric vehicle chargepoints (EVCPs) further information can be found at Covered car parks: fire safety guidance for electric vehicles (publishing.service.gov.uk)