The average sized 100MW solar farm hosting around 300,000 to +400,000 solar panels (modules) will generally have over 1,000,000 physical made electrical terminations. Each one of these terminations operates at around 1500 Volts and each termination could fail. 

Electrical equipment failure is well known to be linked to situations where we can observe abnormally high temperatures. Fire, sparking, arching or melting exposes electrical equipment to further damage and degradation exacerbated as moisture ingress occurs. Electrical failure can occur due to various factors and although the commonly seen issue will generally arise due to high resistive joints it is not uncommon to observe how the environment impacts equipment overtime. Electrical termination temperatures can reach over 120° Celsius, under these conditions, equipment will begin to deteriorate, over time plastics will have already begun to deform or melt and visible signs or smells will be present. Mismanagement, poor quality equipment and installation practices or lack of scheduled maintenance is generally what leads to these situations. Thorough and regular maintenance procedures can control these issues including addressing performance degradation, system dropouts, inverter failure/faults and lost yield.