With the increasing number of Photovoltaic arrays (PV) being installed on buildings of all shapes, sizes and uses it is becoming increasingly obvious that in many cases there is little, or no concern given to the workers who are required to access the panels for maintenance purposes.
This can be down to a lack of knowledge on the part of the designer, but also, more worryingly, can be down to a trade-off between output from the PV and the cost of the safety system to be installed.

By properly assessing the risks and costs over the life of the PV, and potentially increasing the cost for the initial PV installation then we can potentially keep the costs of the maintenance to a minimum though its life.

It is the life cost that should be considered in the design initially, and by life cost we do not just mean the life of the PV array, we also mean the life of the maintenance technician.