Photo voltaic panel testing lab Kiwa PVEL has up to date its Product Qualification Program (PQP). The revisions handle rising concern areas for the worldwide photo voltaic trade, together with the rise of area failures associated to spontaneous glass breakage, body structural failures and more and more extreme hail occasions.
“Throughout the trade, we proceed to see rising situations of spontaneous glass breakage within the area,” stated Tristan Erion-Lorico, VP of gross sales and advertising and marketing at Kiwa PVEL. “As producers have pushed towards bigger modules and thinner supplies, these sudden breakage occasions have made it clear that extra rigorous and statistically significant testing is required. Our up to date PQP now makes use of larger pattern sizes and take a look at‑to‑failure methodologies to higher assess module sturdiness.”
Kiwa PVEL has launched take a look at‑to‑failure (TTF) protocols for each static mechanical load (SML) and hail testing to the PQP. The brand new SML-TTF enhances the PQP’s present mechanical stress sequences (MSS) by quantifying the dominant failure mode and achievable most load for every module design submitted for PQP testing. It additionally expands the take a look at pattern amount to 5 extra SML-TTF samples, on high of the 2 MSS samples.
Kiwa PVEL
The Hail‑TTF protocol replaces the earlier hail stress sequence (HSS) within the PQP. The up to date hail take a look at will increase the pattern dimension to 5 modules and focuses on affect places within the areas most susceptible to breakage, equivalent to edges, corners, and junction field areas. Hail‑TTF tremendously improves repeatability and comparability throughout producers and glass suppliers, by escalating hail diameters till failure happens, offering consumers with extra quantifiable breakage thresholds.
Kiwa PVEL has additionally up to date its PQP pattern manufacturing witness course of to extra systematically confirm important body and glass dimensions in factories, additional decreasing uncertainty associated to materials and meeting variability.
As n‑kind applied sciences turn into dominant within the PV market, testing labs have encountered elevated measurement uncertainty pushed by metastability mechanisms. Kiwa PVEL’s staff spent the previous years quantifying these results and recognized three distinct types of metastability that may distort publish‑take a look at efficiency measurements:
- Gradual darkish‑storage degradation following damp warmth testing
- Accelerated darkish‑storage degradation following UV publicity and area publicity
- Doubtlessly recoverable PID‑polarization degradation following voltage stress
To counter these results, the up to date PQP introduces closing stabilization steps, together with brief doses of full‑spectrum gentle soaking and UV‑gentle soaking, after UVID, area publicity, damp warmth and PID testing. These steps be sure that publish‑take a look at flash measurements extra precisely mirror true module conduct within the area.
A number of different refinements additional improve the PQP’s relevance for modern-day modules:
- Diminished LID pattern dimension from 17 to 10 modules, justified by low and constant LID values in recent times.
- Allowance for pre‑take a look at present induced preconditioning (along with outside and indoor gentle‑soaking) to hurry testing and enhance scheduling flexibility.
- Streamlined UVID sequencing, eliminating the interim UV60 characterization in favor of a steady 120 kWh/m2 publicity, with an choice to increase as much as 360 kWh/m2 for BOMs that present larger UVID susceptibility.
- Up to date power rankings following IEC61853-3/4 methodology, leveraging our excessive accuracy PAN and IAM testing information.
“Repeatedly iterating on the PQP makes it essentially the most related take a look at plan for immediately’s module applied sciences and failure modes,” stated Kevin Gibson, Managing Director at Kiwa PVEL. “These updates enable module producers to higher showcase product reliability and efficiency on their present choices. The brand new PQP additionally ensures that photo voltaic consumers obtain significant, statistically sturdy and actionable information.”
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