Real‐time reliability test for a CPV module based on a power degradation model

González, José Ramón Perán; Vázquez, M.; Algora, Carlos; Núñez, Neftalí

doi:10.1002/pip.991

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Additionally, our predictions on the basis of temperature stress have a limited validity. For example, we are not absolutely sure if the failure mechanism that appears in our tests will be the same as that in real operation, although previous experiments for 1‐year real operation with this type of cells shows that they suffer a very low degradation without any catastrophic failures. This is consistent with our experiments, but it is necessary to confirm that the degradation mechanism for long time operation in field is the same in order to apply the numerical reliability and warranty results obtained in these tests.…”

Section: Validity Range Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Evaluation of the reliability of high concentrator GaAs solar cells by means of temperature accelerated aging tests

Núñez

González

Vázquez

et al. 2012

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Evaluating the reliability, warranty period, and power degradation of high concentration solar cells is crucial to introducing this new technology to the market. The reliability of high concentration GaAs solar cells, as measured in temperature accelerated life tests, is described in this paper. GaAs cells were tested under high thermal accelerated conditions that emulated operation under 700 or 1050 suns over a period exceeding 10 000 h. Progressive power degradation was observed, although no catastrophic failures occurred. An Arrhenius activation energy of 1.02 eV was determined from these tests. The solar cell reliability [R(t)] under working conditions of 65°C was evaluated for different failure limits (1–10% power loss). From this reliability function, the mean time to failure and the warranty time were evaluated. Solar cell temperature appeared to be the primary determinant of reliability and warranty period, with concentration being the secondary determinant. A 30‐year warranty for these 1 mm2‐sized GaAs cells (manufactured according to a light emitting diode‐like approach) may be offered for both cell concentrations (700 and 1050 suns) if the solar cell is operated at a working temperature of 65°C. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Validity Range Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 81%

Evaluation of the reliability of high concentrator GaAs solar cells by means of temperature accelerated aging tests

Núñez

González

Vázquez

et al. 2012

Progress in Photovoltaics

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“…The most critical functions, the connectivity and data transmission functions, passed the test. It was demonstrated that the datalogger is highly reliable [28,29], measuring correctly even at 55 • C.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Long-Term Performance of a Solar Home System (SHS) Monitoring System on Harsh Environments

López-Vargas

Fuentes

Vivar

2019

Sensors

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Dataloggers installed in rural regions of developing countries need to be autonomous, robust, and have good recording capacity as they may be exposed to harsh environmental conditions. An extremely hot, dry, and dusty climate can imply additional wear and tear toequipment. A test procedurewas designed and run in a confined space to control climate conditions to test the datalogger. An outdoor campaign lasting more than three years was performed at the Instituto Madrileño de Estudios Avanzados (IMDEA) Water Institute, in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, Spain) and at the Escuela Politécnica Superior (EPS) Linares (Jaén, Spain) to test the low-cost datalogger under real conditions. The results demonstrated that it was robust and endured extreme weather conditions. In order to avoid the loss of data, a new version with a redundant system based on an SD card was implemented and tested under real conditions. good recording capacity because SHSs are commonly installed in locations where there is neither an electrical grid nor traditional wired telecommunication networks, and they are often difficult to access by everyday transport. As for modern communications, due to the quality of wired networks in developing countries, Internet services frequently and successively drop. Dataloggers need to be robust as they may be exposed to harsh environmental conditions. Schelling et al. [17] reported that one of the fundamental roadblocks to sustainable and scalable solar electrification is high maintenance costs induced by several factors: High equipment failure rates, poor maintenance/rough usage practices, high fixed maintenance costs due to travel, low user densities in sparsely populated areas, and the severe lack of accountability in the system. For equipment failures, these authors detected that an extremely hot, dry, and dusty climate can affect PV systems with additional wear and tear on equipment. This is an issue of special concern because the climate zones with the highest temperatures (in regions between latitudes N 35 • and S 35 • ) are found in many developing countries in central Africa, the Americas, and South Asia, and extreme climate conditions can affect the correct functioning of the dataloggers installed in rural areas of these countries.In 2014, Fuentes et al. [18] proposed a low-cost monitoring system designed around open source and free hardware platforms (Arduino TM ) to monitor PV systems. It was designed especially to be installed in isolated regions or rural areas in developing countries. The datalogger measured up to eight electrical/meteorological parameters and three analog temperatures with a resolution of 18-bits. The datalogger was empirically tested under real environmental conditions and accomplished the accuracy requirements of the IEC standards for PV systems. Later in 2018, an improved prototype of this low-cost monitoring system was developed by López-Vargas et al. [19]. Its main enhancements were: Minimized power consumption, more meteorological parameters measured, improved electrical measurem...

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“…The main objectives of the reliability analysis are to evaluate the time accelerated aging factor between tests at any solar cell junction temperatures, 17,18 and to calculate the reliability and mean time to failure at normal working conditions. For thermal accelerated tests, Arrhenius' law is used to extrapolate the power time evolution for any junction temperature.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instrumentation for accelerated life tests of concentrator solar cells

Núñez

Vázquez

González

et al. 2011

Review of Scientific Instruments

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Concentrator photovoltaic is an emergent technology that may be a good economical and efficient alternative for the generation of electricity at a competitive cost. However, the reliability of these new solar cells and systems is still an open issue due to the high-irradiation level they are subjected to as well as the electrical and thermal stresses that they are expected to endure. To evaluate the reliability in a short period of time, accelerated aging tests are essential. Thermal aging tests for concentrator photovoltaic solar cells and systems under illumination are not available because no technical solution to the problem of reaching the working concentration inside a climatic chamber has been available. This work presents an automatic instrumentation system that overcomes the aforementioned limitation. Working conditions have been simulated by forward biasing the solar cells to the current they would handle at the working concentration (in this case, 700 and 1050 times the irradiance at one standard sun). The instrumentation system has been deployed for more than 10 000 h in a thermal aging test for III-V concentrator solar cells, in which the generated power evolution at different temperatures has been monitored. As a result of this test, the acceleration factor has been calculated, thus allowing for the degradation evolution at any temperature in addition to normal working conditions to be obtained.

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Real‐time reliability test for a CPV module based on a power degradation model

Cited by 18 publications

References 13 publications

Evaluation of the reliability of high concentrator GaAs solar cells by means of temperature accelerated aging tests

Evaluation of the reliability of high concentrator GaAs solar cells by means of temperature accelerated aging tests

Evaluation of Long-Term Performance of a Solar Home System (SHS) Monitoring System on Harsh Environments

Instrumentation for accelerated life tests of concentrator solar cells

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