Qualification testing versus quantitative reliability testing of PV – Gaining confidence in a rapidly changing technology

Continued growth of PV system deployment would be enhanced by quantitative, low-uncertainty predictions of the degradation and failure rates of PV modules and systems. The intended product lifetime (decades) far exceeds the product development cycle (months), preventing low-uncertainty predictions for this rapidly changing technology. Yet, business decisions (setting insurance rates, analyzing return on investment, etc.) require quantitative risk assessment. Moving toward more quantitative predictions requires consideration of many factors, including the intended application, consequence of a possible failure, variability in the manufacturing, installation, and operation, as well as uncertainty in the measured acceleration factors. As the industry matures, it is useful to periodically assess the overall strategy for standards development and prioritization of research to provide a technical basis both for the standards and the analysis related to application of those. To this end, this paper suggests a tiered approach to creating risk assessments. Recent and potential improvements in international standards are also summarized.

KURTZ Sarah;  WHITFIELD Kent;  PHILIPS Nancy;  SAMPLE Tony;  MONOKROUSSOS Christos;  HSI Edward;  REPINS Ingrid;  HACKE Peter;  JORDAN Dirk;  WOHLGEMUTH John;  SEIDEL Peter;  JAHN Ulrike;  KEMPE Michael;  TANAHASHI Tadanori;  CHEN Yingnan;  JAECKEL Bengt;  YAMAMICHI Masaaki; 

2017-11-16

WIP GmbH & Co-KG

JRC107895

3-936338-47-7,   

2196-100X,   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC107895,   

10.4229/EUPVSEC20172017-5DP.1.2,