The Impact of Snail Trails and Cracks to Energy Output of Photovoltaic Modules at Lotas Off-Grid PV System

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of the snail trails and cracks phenomena in 200 Wp photovoltaic (PV) modules to energy output after five years of operation. Data collection was carried out through string voltage measurement, visual inspection, and Real Operating Conditions (ROC) test for permanently degraded PV especially the type of snail trail and crack degradation conducted at the Lotas Off-Grid PV System, South Central Timor Indonesia. For this paper, we applied quantitative methods to analyze data. The result shows that the permanent degradation caused by the snail trail will experience a maximum power decrease of 67 Watt per m 2 , while permanent degradation caused by crack will experience a power decrease of 551 Watt/m 2 .

Analysis of various degradations of five years aged mono c-Si, poly c-Si, and thin-film photovoltaic modules from rooftop solar installations in Dhaka’s tropical wet and dry climate conditions

“…For instance, for degradation in mono c-Si, studies on 7 years aged modules in Singapore (Luo et al, 2019), 5 years aged modules in India (Dubey et al, 2017), 5 and 10 years aged modules in Algeria (Charrouf et al, 2017), 3 years aged modules in Senegal (Ndiaye et al, 2015), 12 years aged modules in Ghana (Aboagye et al, 2021), and 22 years aged modules in Spain (Lillo-Sánchez et al, 2021) are notable. For degradation in poly c-Si, studies on 3 years aged modules in Indonesia (Sinaga et al, 2019), 9 years aged modules in Malaysia (Islam et al, 2018), and 3 years aged modules in India (Dubey et al, 2017) are notable. Similarly, few studies exist on solar PV module types such as CIGS, CdTe, and HIT (Dubey et al, 2017).…”