Agilus

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Agilus Agilus provides a wide range of services including disaster management, bushfire risk assessments and training development and delivery.

Our team are operational firefighters as well as experienced fire risk and emergencyplanning consultants. We know what f...
15/10/2026

Our team are operational firefighters as well as experienced fire risk and emergency
planning consultants. We know what fire services will need on the day, and we design plans around
that reality, not just around paperwork. Practical plans. Credible plans. Plans fire services can use.

Reading a guideline is one thing. Knowing how it's applied on a real project is another. Wework with the requirements of...
14/10/2026

Reading a guideline is one thing. Knowing how it's applied on a real project is another. We
work with the requirements of FRNSW, FRV, CFA and AFAC, and we've supported projects through the
approval process with regulators and fire services. That experience saves time, avoids rework and
helps projects move forward.

Renewable energy projects are moving fast. Fire safety approvals need to keep up. At Agilus,our team combines fire risk ...
13/10/2026

Renewable energy projects are moving fast. Fire safety approvals need to keep up. At Agilus,
our team combines fire risk assessment, emergency planning and real operational firefighting
experience to help solar, wind and battery projects get through regulatory approval. Over the coming
weeks we'll share what we're seeing across the country. Follow along.

In the past twelve months, the Australian BESS fire safety landscape has seen more significant guidance published than i...
12/10/2026

In the past twelve months, the Australian BESS fire safety landscape has seen more significant guidance published than in the previous decade combined.

AFAC released its national framework for large-scale BESS installations in February 2025. CFA released its Fire Safety Studies for BESS guideline and its updated Community BESS guideline in June 2025. FRV released GL-55 in August 2025. FRNSW issued its formal position statement on emergency planning for sites with significant lithium battery quantities in December 2024.

Taken together, these documents now provide a comprehensive, coordinated, and authoritative framework for fire safety at BESS projects across Australia. The expectations are documented. The processes are clear. The document hierarchy — Preliminary Hazard Analysis, Risk Management Plan, Fire Safety Study, Fire Management Plan, Emergency Management Plan — is established.

What that means is that there is no longer a gap in guidance that can justify an underprepared fire safety submission. There is no longer ambiguity about what fire services expect. And there is no longer a credible argument for leaving fire safety engagement until late in the project.

The guidance has been published. The fire services are applying it. The time for developers and operators to get ahead of these requirements — not to chase them from behind — is now.

If you are planning or operating a BESS or renewable energy project anywhere in Australia, Agilus is ready to help.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

AFAC's national BESS guideline, CFA's Fire Safety Studies guideline, FRV's GL-55, and FRNSW's position statements were a...
09/10/2026

AFAC's national BESS guideline, CFA's Fire Safety Studies guideline, FRV's GL-55, and FRNSW's position statements were all written by fire services — by people whose professional responsibility is to respond to incidents at these facilities, protect their firefighters, and protect the communities around them.

That origin shapes the language, the priorities, and the specific requirements in every one of those documents. When CFA requires that separation distances be justified by consequence modelling that accounts for radiant heat flux from a fully involved BESS unit, it is because CFA has thought carefully about the conditions under which its firefighters will need to operate near a burning battery. When AFAC requires that the fire safety strategy be developed with consideration to the emergency response capabilities of the jurisdictional fire and emergency service, it is because the fire service will ultimately be the organisation that has to manage a worst-case event.

Understanding those documents the way their authors intended requires more than reading them carefully. It requires an understanding of how fire services actually operate, what their tactical constraints are in a large-scale battery incident, and what information they need to make safe decisions quickly.

At Agilus, our team includes operational firefighters alongside fire risk and emergency planning specialists. That combination is what allows us to prepare documentation that speaks the language of the fire services reviewing it.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

The fire safety obligations for a BESS project do not end at commissioning. They continue throughout the operational lif...
08/10/2026

The fire safety obligations for a BESS project do not end at commissioning. They continue throughout the operational life of the facility — and are triggered again whenever the facility is modified.

CFA's June 2025 guideline notes that CFA should be notified at significant maintenance periods for the BESS. FRV's GL-55 is more specific: battery modules should generally be replaced with identical modules to those originally tested, and any BESS modification triggers a review of the fire safety documentation.

AFAC's February 2025 national guideline was designed to support both new BESS developments and existing BESS modifications — an acknowledgement that the modification of existing facilities is a significant and growing issue as early-generation BESS projects reach maintenance and upgrade cycles.

The practical implications for operators are straightforward. If you are replacing battery modules with a different product, changing the layout or capacity of the installation, adding infrastructure, or making any significant modification to the systems or controls described in the original Risk Management Plan or Fire Safety Study, that documentation needs to be reviewed. In many cases it will need to be updated, and the relevant fire service notified.

Treating a BESS modification as a purely technical or commercial decision — without considering the fire safety documentation implications — is a risk that operators cannot afford to take.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

Agilus has operated across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia — and across th...
07/10/2026

Agilus has operated across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia — and across that experience we have built a working knowledge of what each jurisdiction's fire services and planning authorities actually expect from BESS and renewable energy fire safety documentation.

In practice, that means we understand that CFA and FRV have different processes, different document hierarchies, and different engagement protocols for the same category of project. We understand that FRNSW's December 2024 position statement on lithium battery emergency planning has changed what is required for NSW projects over the 25,000 kilogram threshold. We understand that planning frameworks for renewable energy in Queensland and South Australia involve different referral agencies and different assessment pathways.

We also understand that developers running multi-state portfolios face a specific challenge: the Risk Management Plan, Emergency Management Plan, and Fire Safety Study that satisfies CFA in Victoria does not automatically satisfy FRNSW in NSW or the relevant planning authority in Queensland. Each project needs documents that are scoped and framed for the specific jurisdiction and the specific fire service that will review them.

What we bring to that challenge is not a template applied across all projects. It is an understanding of the differences — and the experience to manage them efficiently.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

A Risk Management Plan that only addresses on-site consequences is not meeting the requirements of any of Australia's cu...
06/10/2026

A Risk Management Plan that only addresses on-site consequences is not meeting the requirements of any of Australia's current BESS fire safety guidance documents.

CFA's June 2025 guideline is explicit that consequence analysis must identify and assess both on-site and off-site receptors. Off-site receptors that must be considered include dwellings, schools, hospitals, child care and aged care facilities, community hubs, emergency services, environmental receptors such as soil, flora and fauna, and waterways.

The consequence analysis must model and map the potential extent of exposures to those off-site receptors — including radiant heat flux, plume spread of gases and smoke in both typical seasonal conditions and fire weather conditions, and potential explosion overpressures — across scenarios where in-built safety systems both succeed and fail.

FRV's GL-55 similarly requires consequence modelling that considers off-site impacts, particularly where a BESS is located within 200 metres of a habitable structure. At the pre-construction phase, this modelling is a required input to the fire safety documentation regardless of the scale of the project.

The Risk Management Plan uses this analysis to justify the separation distances, fire breaks, water management systems, and detection and protection measures specified for the facility. Without robust off-site consequence analysis, those justifications have no foundation.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

One of the four research projects in FRNSW's SARET program is specifically focused on fire propagation in battery energy...
05/10/2026

One of the four research projects in FRNSW's SARET program is specifically focused on fire propagation in battery energy storage systems — and the fact that FRNSW identified this as a priority research area tells you something important about where the knowledge gaps currently are.

The research question SARET Project 4 is investigating is: what are the risks related to fire propagation within and between stationary BESS units due to external factors not considered in current standards?

Those external factors include fire impingement from an adjacent unit, temperature extremes such as heatwaves, impact, shock and vibrations, and water ingress or flooding.

Current standards — including UL 9540A cell, module, and unit-level tests — primarily address propagation under controlled test conditions that may not reflect real-world site environments. The research being conducted through SARET is designed to fill those gaps with evidence from comprehensive real fire tests at fire research and testing facilities.

What this means for Fire Safety Studies and Risk Management Plans being prepared now is that the evidence base used in consequence analysis should acknowledge where current test data has limitations — and where conservative assumptions are being made to compensate for research that is still in progress.

A Fire Safety Study that treats current standards as fully resolved is not reflecting the actual state of the science.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

A detail that is easy to overlook for developers new to the Victorian fire safety landscape: Victoria has two primary fi...
02/10/2026

A detail that is easy to overlook for developers new to the Victorian fire safety landscape: Victoria has two primary fire services with separate geographic jurisdictions, and the documentation and engagement requirements for a BESS project differ depending on which district the project sits in.

CFA — the Country Fire Authority — has jurisdiction in the country and outer metropolitan areas of Victoria. BESS projects in CFA country are reviewed against CFA's Design Guidelines and Model Requirements for Renewable Energy Facilities, and the June 2025 Fire Safety Studies for BESS Guideline. The primary document CFA reviews is the Risk Management Plan.

FRV — Fire Rescue Victoria — has jurisdiction in the metropolitan fire district, covering greater Melbourne and several regional cities. BESS projects in the FRV district are assessed against GL-55, released August 2025. FRV categorises BESS into three tiers based on capacity, with different documentation requirements at each tier.

Some larger BESS projects, particularly those near the boundary of the two districts or serving both areas, may require engagement with both services. The planning permit process for the specific site will determine which fire service referrals are required.

Getting the regulatory pathway right at the start of a Victorian BESS project saves significant time and avoids submitting documentation to the wrong service or in the wrong format.

Agilus advises on the correct regulatory pathway for every Victorian project location from the outset.

www.agilus.com.au
+61 439 289 234
[email protected]

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Traralgon, VIC
3844

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