Forum for European Electrical Domestic Safety
"In Europe, 25% to 30% of fires have an electrical source"
(FEEDS report, March 2020)
-------- COVID-19 and electrical safety: 10 recommendations keeping you safe at home during the lockdown --------
Health, safety and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic are everyone’s top priorities.
Electrical safety must be part of our everyday routines to ensure maximum safety at home. In the current exceptional circumstances, the FEEDS forum publishes 10 recommendations that we can all easily implement and adopt in our daily lives.
Take care of yourself and take care of your electrical environment!
10 tips for electrical safe home working final_FEEDS.pdfAbout FEEDS
The FEEDS Forum is a working group that brings together organisations wishing to work together to improve electrical safety in dwellings.
The Forum pursues three main and complementary objectives:
Contribute to improving data on domestic fires with electrical source in each European country and at European level
Identify and promote solutions in Europe to reduce the number of electrical accidents and fires from electrical source in dwellings
Facilitate the availability of these solutions to all the stakeholders concerned by electrical safety in dwellings in each European country
Members
The European consumer voice in standardisation
European Committee of Electrical Installation Equipment Manufacturers
Europacable
European Association of Electrical Contractors
European Copper Institute
European Fire Safety Alliance
Federation of the European Union Fire Officer Associations
International Federation for the Safety of Electricity Users
Insurance Europe Prevention Forum
Confédération Nationale du Logement
The UK’s Electrical Safety Experts
Groupe de réflexion sur la sécurité électrique dans le logement
Dutch Burns Foundation
Reports
Cu0246_WP_FEEDS.pdfWHITE PAPER
Residential electrical safety
How to insure progress
March 2020
In the past 120 years, electricity has become the overarching energy source in our everyday life. Its applications have improved our comfort and safety, multiplying the means of entertaining and communicating.
However, domestic electricity can be dangerous. Specifically, the safety of older electrical installations is a concern in the countries of the European Union, given the low renovation rate of dwellings and their electrical installations. At the same time, the uses of domestic electricity continues to diversify and develop, progressively posing increasingly important challenges in terms of quality and safety of electrical energy used in households.
The safety deficiencies of obsolete electrical installations generally result from the aging of their components, the lack of maintenance and inappropriate usage. The dangers they represent are also clearly identified. The risks of electrification and electrocution are well known, but fires of electrical origin and their consequences are the most worrying.
WG1 final.pdfEUROPEAN DATA
Key figures by country
Sourced and extrapolated data
September 2019
Data presented (e.g. those of France and the UK) were gathered after extensive research by a network of collaborating expert stakeholders and can be considered to be highly reliable. They clearly show that electrical safety issues constitute a substantial problem regarding fire safety.
Starting from the reliable figures, conservative extrapolations were constructed for other countries in the Northwestern EU. We continued this exercise with the slightly less consolidated data to make even more prudent extrapolations for the other European regions. Even though the resulting figures are not confirmed by assessments in the field, they do provide an idea of the probable size of the problem in those countries. The FEEDS Forum would be eager to collaborate with stakeholders to collect more actual and consolidated numbers for those countries.
TO LEARN MORE AT COUNTRY LEVEL:
A case study for France is available here: CASE STUDY - FRANCE
Prosiel published in 2020 a white paper entitled "Gli italiani e la sicurezza elettrica (Italians and electrical safety)" resulting of a qualitative and quantitative cognitive investigation that Prosiel commissioned to the Piepoli Institute.
Social Media
Follow the dedicated hashtag about electrical safety: #SafetyEU
on Twitter
Events
The second European Fire Safety Week took place in a digital format from 17 to 19 November 2020.
Five high-level online events about fire safety were co-organised by the European Fire Safety Alliance (EuroFSA). More than 32 speakers succeeded to share their expertise, draft recommendations, bring their concerns, request to bridge gaps and lead EuroFSA in defining the actions to be undertaken by the next edition in 2021 (November 15th to 18th).
The stake of the energy transition for buildings
For the second edition of the European Fire Safety Week, the European Fire Safety Alliance (EuroFSA) teamed up with the Modern Building Alliance, Europacable and the FEEDS Forum to address the stake of fire safety of buildings in the context of the energy transition.