Causes of Degradation Identified by the Extended Thermal Cycling Test on Commercially Available Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules

Kawai, Shinji; Tanahashi, Takahiko; Fukumoto, Yuhshi; Tamai, Fujio; Masuda, Atsushi; Kondo, Michio

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2017.2741102

Cited by 33 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This test is known to primarily accelerate failure of solder bonds 55 although one of its original purposes was to validate cell‐to‐cell interconnect strain relief due to significant field failures following the JPL Block III purchase. Thermal cycling will also promote other failure mechanisms 56 . Modeling typically estimates that for severe climates (hot with large temperature swings) that between 400 and 600 cycles are roughly equivalent to a 25‐year lifetime 57 against a tin‐lead solder fatigue failure mode.…”

Section: Thermal Cycling Hot Spot Endurance Uv Exposure Testing J‐mentioning

confidence: 99%

Standards development for modules in high temperature micro‐environments

Kempe

Holsapple

Whitfield³

et al. 2021

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Photovoltaic (PV) module qualification standards, IEC 61215 and IEC 61730, were designed to apply to “general open‐air climates” and IEC 61730 specifically indicated applicability of ambient air temperature of 40°C. Additionally, these standards provided allowances for so‐called “open rack mounted PV modules” without a clear definition of “open‐rack.” These implied restrictions and allowances meant that hotter climates or thermally restrictive installation methods may not be covered by these often customer‐mandated certification standards. This is particularly salient for the significant growth regions of the Middle East and India that would be expected to operate at significantly higher temperatures. The applicability of these documents raised issues over the definition of “open rack” and the fact that the geographic location is just as important as the mounting configuration in assessing the impact of the micro‐environment of a PV module. This work summarizes the scientific background for IEC Technical Specification 63126:2020 ED1, titled “Guidelines for qualifying PV modules components and materials for operation at high temperatures.” This standard was recently published by the IEC and is the first step in a systematic effort to rework these standards to address the question of temperature more directly. Instead of specifying a mounting condition, we specify different suites of tests suitable for a system (PV module, mounting style, and location) defined by the 98th percentile cell temperature. With a defined temperature regime to work from, this allowed us to use existing literature research combined with additional modeling work to determine, which tests would need to be modified. This resulted in suggested changes to material thermal indices, thermal cycling temperatures, hot spot testing, ultraviolet testing, and bypass diode testing among other tests and characteristics described herein.

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Section: Thermal Cycling Hot Spot Endurance Uv Exposure Testing J‐mentioning

confidence: 99%

Standards development for modules in high temperature micro‐environments

Kempe

Holsapple

Whitfield³

et al. 2021

Progress in Photovoltaics

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“…The modelling of the degradation mechanisms through simulations and experiments in principle directly leads to lifetime improvements in PV modules [5]. Outdoor field-testing has played a significant role in measuring the lifetime and behaviour for two key reasons: (i) it is the typical functioning environment for PV installations, and (ii) it is the only way to correlate between the indoor testing apparatuses and the outdoor results to forecast the actual performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insights on the Degradation and Performance of 3000 Photovoltaic Installations of Various Technologies Across the United Kingdom

Dhimish

Schofield

Attya

2021

IEEE Trans. Ind. Inf.

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This article presents the degradation rates over eight years for 3000 PV installations distributed across the UK. The study considers three PV cell technologies, namely, monocrystalline silicon (Mono-Si), polycrystalline silicon (Poly-Si), and thin-film Cadmium Telluride (CdTe). The available raw data undergoes three key stages: normalization, filtering, and aggregation, before the degradation analysis of the considered installations. This algorithm can be considered as one of the paper contributions. Results show that a maximum degradation rate of-1.43%/year is observed for the CdTe type, whereas Poly-Si and Mono-Si PVs have annual degradation rates of-0.94% and-0.81% respectively. Moreover, this article exploits the monthly mean performance ratio (PR) for all the examined PV sites. The highest PR value of 87.97% is calculated for the Mono-Si PV installations, while 85.08% and 83.55% is calculated for Poly-Si and CdTe installations, respectively.

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“…The documentation of the degradation mechanisms through modeling and experiments in principle directly leads to lifetime improvements of PV modules as suggested by S. Kawai et al [5]. Outdoor field testing has played a significant role in measuring long-term lifetime and behavior for at least two reasons: it is the typical functioning environment for PV installations, and it is the only way to correlate indoor testing apparatuses to outdoor results to forecast field performance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photovoltaic Degradation Rate Affected by Different Weather Conditions: A Case Study Based on PV Systems in the UK and Australia

Dhimish

Alrashidi

2020

Electronics

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This article presents the analysis of degradation rate over 10 years (2008 to 2017) for six different photovoltaic (PV) sites located in the United Kingdom (mainly affected by cold weather conditions) and Australia (PV affected by hot weather conditions). The analysis of the degradation rate was carried out using the year-on-year (YOY) degradation technique. It was found that the degradation rate in the UK systems varies from −1.05% and −1.16%/year. Whereas a higher degradation ranging from −1.35% to −1.46%/year is observed for the PV systems installed in Australia. Additionally, it was found that in the Australian PV systems multiple faulty PV bypass diodes are present due to the rapid change in the ambient temperature and uneven solar irradiance levels influencing the PV modules. However, in cold weather conditions (such as in the Northern UK) none of the bypass diodes were damaged over the considered PV exposure period. Furthermore, the number of PV hot spots have also been observed, where it was found that in the UK-based PV systems the number of hot spotted PV modules are less than those found in the Australian systems. Finally, the analysis of the monthly performance ratio (PR) was calculated. It was found that the mean monthly PR is equal to 88.81% and 86.35% for PV systems installed in the UK and Australia, respectively.There are various references in the literature that include the degradation rate of PV systems worldwide. However, there are a lack of references found in the literature describing the behavior and degradation analysis of existing PV systems in the United Kingdom and Australia. Therefore, in this article, the degradation rate of six PV sites installed in three different locations in the UK and Australia are examined over a period of ten years (2008 to 2017). Before moving to the methodology, it is indeed important to have an overview of the degradation rate across multiple regions in the world, which will be summarized as follows:• United States of America (USA): The USA is placed on the top five countries leading the PV technology worldwide [6]. In 1977, the Department of Energy established the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado. In 1991, it was renamed as the NREL. Outdoor testing of modules and sub-modules started at the Solar Energy Research Institute in 1982. When amorphous silicon (a-Si) modules first became commercially available, NREL began to report degradation rate that were considerably higher than −1.0%/year [7]. In [8] and [9], similar results of the PV degradation were found in small (<10 kWp) size PV installations, followed by a yearly degradation rate of approximate −0.8% to −1.25%/year. • Europe: The terrestrial focus of PV industry in Europe can be traced to the oil crisis of the 1970s. The development and institution of PV sites can be divided into publicly and privately funded projects. The publicly funded portion in Europe can be additionally divided into the umbrella organization of the Commission of the European Communities and individual national p...

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Causes of Degradation Identified by the Extended Thermal Cycling Test on Commercially Available Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules

Cited by 33 publications

References 20 publications

Standards development for modules in high temperature micro‐environments

Standards development for modules in high temperature micro‐environments

Insights on the Degradation and Performance of 3000 Photovoltaic Installations of Various Technologies Across the United Kingdom

Photovoltaic Degradation Rate Affected by Different Weather Conditions: A Case Study Based on PV Systems in the UK and Australia

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