The solar industry has seen unprecedented growth in the past decade. The global manufacturing base has grown twentyfold, going from 20 gigawatts in 2010 to over 400 gigawatts today.
In a world of fake news, the challenge is finding the right data – the data that matters. Watch the video. I’ll show you why.
Jenya Meydbray, CEO
PV Evolution Labs
With 100 million cells soldered per day, we are seeing degradation rates >15%. This is only the beginning.
To address climate change, we will need to reach at least 1 billion cells per day. Quality cannot be sacrificed for scale.
Reliable PV module performance depends on stringent manufacturing process controls and well-made components. When manufacturers overlook quality assurance and quality control steps or use substandard materials, premature failure in modules is likely to occur.
Today’s projects use technologies and components that did not exist 25 years ago. Though the long-term reliability of new PV module designs cannot be proven with field data, PVEL’s laboratory testing simulates and accelerates environmental conditions to replicate field failures.
A recent study of Europe’s first grid-connected solar project, the TISO-10-kW plant in Switzerland, demonstrates the profound impact of material selection on long-term field performance.
”PV modules with different encapsulant formulations were exposed to the exact same field conditions for thirty-five years. One type of encapsulant remains transparent with minimal signs of aging, one is aging severely and one only moderately.
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The use of quality materials in some modules resulted in >20% higher power output after 35 years of field operation.
Researchers determined that the use of different encapsulant formulations was the primary cause of degradation rate variability.
While modules with one type of encapsulant degraded just 4.9% on average after 35 years, modules with two other encapsulant formulations exhibited much higher mean degradation rates of 19.1% and 26.1%.
In-depth studies of 36 solar projects in India show that modules with less than five years of field operation have higher average degradation rates than older modules, especially in hot climates.
Across all sites, an average LID-discounted annual degradation rate of 1.47% was observed, which is higher than the 0.7% specified in most manufacturers’ linear performance warranties. Degradation was typically much higher in hot areas than in colder, mountainous regions where rates of 0.7% were observed.
According to the researchers, the use of substandard material components and insufficient quality controls as the industry expands must be considered as potential causes when newer solar projects underperform. The findings may undermine the financial viability of 40-year modeled lifetimes for modern solar power plants that assume aggressive annual degradation rates, particularly if rigorous due diligence that includes BOM specification is not conducted.
PV modules in younger sites have higher average degradation rates. While PID was a significant factor, projects affected by hotspots and cell cracks also suffered from significant underperformance.
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”We find evidence in this one system that the system degrades at a rate comparable with the worst modules, implying that…systems will degrade faster than the average module rate when the modules show a spread of degradation rates. The performance appears to be limited by the worst performing module and string.
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