In Part 4 of our interview focused on "Insurance Perspective on Renewable Energy Solutions" with Dr. Ceyhun Eren, the Director of Allianz Türkiye Risk Engineering and Allianz Teknik, we met at the Allianz Teknik Earthquake & Fire Testing and Training Center and he shared his views on;
This issue is not only new in Türkiye, but also across the world. So we are monitoring all developments regarding it. As Allianz Teknik, upon requests, we started looking into the subject of lithium-ion batteries by testing the parts exposed to vibration inside vehicles. Although we are an earthquake laboratory, since the vibration capacity of our devices is very high, vehicle seats is one of the areas that we provide the most testing services. We receive requests from significant automotive manufacturers abroad on this. We are currently looking into what needs to be done both in preventing the fire risk and during the installation phase. We have not yet prepared a guide regarding risks in the field of activity and other areas, we are working on it. However I am afraid I must say that we may face such fires in the future.
“Sustainability” is part of our vision at Allianz Teknik. I am not much of an expert in terms of the legal side of things. But if I were to summarize our perspective, I would say that we initially set out with the idea of how we can provide more support to our buildings and customers under our responsibility, in order to reduce the effects of climate change and to achieve what we call a clean environment, which includes environmental impacts, social impacts, administrative impacts, and what should be done in what way and what precautions should be taken. The department we have established is quite new, our main goal is to address what kind of measures can be taken before the obligation to pay the so-called “carbon tax”, which will be legally due in 2026, that is our main idea in the service we will provide.
As you progress, you realize that it is a multidisciplinary subject. It does not just involve your energy usage, but covers many areas from waste management to the efforts you make for the production stages of the product you use. We are attempting to develop a tool that will mathematically analyze the risk quickly in this regard. We also want to represent to our customers what measures can be taken to reduce these emissions.
To answer your question, fire is once again the primary risk we face in the wind energy field because there may be some mechanical problems in the electrical parts of the body called the nacelle, specifically in the engine compartment. Due to our perspective, our risk analysis system is quite technical, going into details such as whether or not there is a gearbox, or what kind of precautions are taken regarding lightning protection. The damages mainly we see in this aspect may be due to some malfunctions related to automatic closing systems at very high speeds and may go as far as direct blade breakage. We see that lightning is very influential, which is somewhat related to geographical location.
We also have a digital risk mapping project, which we correlate to reducing the effects of climate change. This is another point to consider during investment. Is this a viable area to install a solar or wind energy panel? For example, does the area have stormy days, is there a high risk of lightning, and are there periods when wind speeds are unmanageable or are there periods of heavy rain? Basically areas to investigate first, much like how we study the ground in regards to earthquakes.
In conclusion, we can see that the risk of fire stands out for wind power plants, and if there is no automatic gas extinguishing system inside the body when a fire starts, which sadly is not the case that there are extinguishing systems inside every wind turbine, the fire leaves people helpless since they are very tall structures and they are left to burn down.
Our role as the insurance industry comes up here. This is a subject we have included in our business rules. We have a separate risk assessment question set for energy facilities much like we do for other types of facilities, and as a result of these questions, a risk score is obtained. If the score is insufficient in terms of our acceptable business criteria, we prepare suggestion packages to take measures in order to ameliorate risks, which will increase the score. In this sense, as the insurance industry, we may need to take an active role in establishing minimum standards against fire risks.
