Photovoltaic (PV) panels installation has become one of the major technologies used for energy production worldwide. Knowledge and competitive prices are the main reasons for the spread usage and expanded exploiting of PV systems. Accordingly, this creates several challenges for manufacturers and customers, mainly, the quality of PV panels to withstand environmental conditions during service lifetime. Hence, the quality of PV panels is a vital aspect. By thinking of PV power plants, it appears that some factors should be considered, like the developing microcracks (µcracks). An issue like that increases the chances of having power loss during the operation phase. Notably, µcracks develop in different shapes and orientations; the variation depends on what causes them. This study is a presentation and summary of data collected from different projects in Jordan to describe the effect of each µcracks shape on power loss, aiming to give decision makers an indication to decide whether to replace the faulty panels or not, depending on their own conditions and projects sizes. Hence, in this study, it was found that the µcracks have impacted power loss differently and recorded power reduction of percentages of 0.82–3.21% for poly-crystalline technology. Variation in power degradation depends on the module situation; whether it is stocked in facility or operated on-site. In the mono-crystalline technology case, the power losses varied between 0.55% and 0.9%, with the exception of some samples from both technologies that have effects other than microcracks, which affected power severely. Furthermore, a general overview is provided for µcracks before installation.

Photovoltaic solar panels became the world’s largest distributed Renewable technology through its easy manufacturing and installation, moreover, the cost of photovoltaic panels falls continuously which provided a safe environment to investors to invest in such systems. The Photovoltaic solar panel made from different layers starting from anti reflected coated glass layer, encapsulation material, solar cells matrix another encapsulant layer and back sheet. This structure does not provide the needed protection to the solar cells encapsulated inside and there will be a possibility of microcracks happen at different stages of the project life cycle starting from the production, transportation, installation, cleaning and operation, and maintenance stage. Through this research, modules from different projects were tested to see the microcracks and their effect. Results show that those cracks can cause a power drop up to 3.21% depending on the type of the module. Furthermore, microcracks are classified as minor and major ones based on their shape, dendritic and vertical shapes are resulted to be the most severe ones.

No abstract

No abstract