Failure and degradation modes and rates of PV modules in a hot-dry climate: Results after 16 years of field exposure

Yedidi, K.; Tatapudi, Sai; Mallineni, J.; Knisely, Brett; Kutiche, J.; TamizhMani, GovindaSamy

doi:10.1109/pvsc.2014.6925626

Cited by 31 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…In addition, the two companies might have significantly altered their process and product in such a way that this might interfere with the determined degradation and even may no longer be traced today for the different studies. Nevertheless, this may corroborate the findings of other studies that mounting configuration may impact the degradation process through temperature or soiling in lower tilt mounted systems [26,29,30]. Although the variation in the data is high, making it difficult to draw strong conclusions, the frequency with which higher degradation rates are observed for the roof-mounted and desert climates is higher than would be expected if higher temperatures have no effect on degradation rates.…”

Section: Climatesupporting

confidence: 85%

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Jordan

Kurtz

VanSant

et al. 2016

Progress in Photovoltaics

435

223

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Published data on photovoltaic (PV) degradation measurements were aggregated and re‐examined. The subject has seen an increased interest in recent years resulting in more than 11 000 degradation rates in almost 200 studies from 40 different countries. As studies have grown in number and size, we found an impact from sampling bias attributable to size and accuracy. Because of the correlational nature of this study we examined the data in several ways to minimize this bias. We found median degradation for x‐Si technologies in the 0.5–0.6%/year range with the mean in the 0.8–0.9%/year range. Hetero‐interface technology (HIT) and microcrystalline silicon (µc‐Si) technologies, although not as plentiful, exhibit degradation around 1%/year and resemble thin‐film products more closely than x‐Si. Several studies showing low degradation for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) have emerged. Higher degradation for cadmium telluride (CdTe) has been reported, but these findings could reflect a convolution of less accurate studies and longer stabilization periods for some products. Significant deviations for beginning‐of‐life measurements with respect to nameplate rating have been documented over the last 35 years. Therefore, degradation rates that use nameplate rating as reference may be significantly impacted. Studies that used nameplate rating as reference but used solar simulators showed less variation than similar studies using outdoor measurements, even when accounting for different climates. This could be associated with confounding effects of measurement uncertainty and soiling that take place outdoors. Hotter climates and mounting configurations that lead to sustained higher temperatures may lead to higher degradation in some, but not all, products. Wear‐out non‐linearities for the worst performing modules have been documented in a few select studies that took multiple measurements of an ensemble of modules during the lifetime of the system. However, the majority of these modules exhibit a fairly linear decline. Modeling these non‐linearities, whether they occur at the beginning‐of‐life or end‐of‐life in the PV life cycle, has an important impact on the levelized cost of energy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Climatesupporting

confidence: 85%

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Jordan

Kurtz

VanSant

et al. 2016

Progress in Photovoltaics

435

223

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The reliability and durability issues of these PV modules are analyzed and reported elsewhere [1], [2]. This paper carries out a statistical analysis on the results obtained from the previous two studies [1], [2] by using the failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA) technique.…”

Section: Determination Of Dominant Failure Modes Using Fmeca On the Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This paper carries out a statistical analysis on the results obtained from the previous two studies [1], [2] by using the failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA) technique. This technique has long been used in the automotive and electronic industries, and is introduced in this study for the PV industry.…”

Section: Determination Of Dominant Failure Modes Using Fmeca On the Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of Dominant Failure Modes Using FMECA on the Field Deployed c-Si Modules Under Hot-Dry Desert Climate

Shrestha

Mallineni

Yedidi

et al. 2015

IEEE J. Photovoltaics

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The failure and degradation modes of about 5900 crystalline-Si glass/polymer modules fielded for six to 16 years in three different photovoltaic (PV) power plants with different mounting systems under the hot-dry desert climate of Arizona are evaluated. Based on the results of this evaluation, failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis, a statistical reliability tool that uses risk priority number is performed for each PV power plant to determine the dominant failure modes in the modules by means of ranking and prioritizing the modes. This study on PV power plants considers all the failure and degradation modes from both safety and performance perspectives and, thus, comes to the conclusion that solder bond fatigue/failure with/without gridline contact fatigue/failure is the most dominant failure/degradation mode for these module types in the hot-dry desert climate of Arizona. Index Terms-Failure mode, effect, and criticality analysis (FMECA), reliability, risk priority number (RPN), statistical.

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“…However, in hot regions, PV efficiency drops considerably, for instance in Qatar, as the temperature reaches 40 • C-50 • C during summer [1]. Quantitatively, due to the heating effect, the efficiency drops by 0.1%-0.5% for each 1 • C gained by the cell surface, depending on the manufacturing technology [2,3]. In Qatar, during the summer season, the surface temperature of the PV panel reached around 80 • C, which could be the same case for the Arabian Gulf and other Middle East countries [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Design for Thermal Management of PV Cells in Harsh Environmental Conditions

et al. 2018

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The abundance of solar energy is a blessing in the Arabian Peninsula, where more than 2000 kWh/m 2 density has been recorded annually. This has resulted in sincere consideration of PV harvesting in the energy matrix and smart grid. However, artefacts such as degradation of PV efficiency due to the high temperature effect have to be addressed. This paper presents a novel design of a PV cooling system using water to mitigate the effect of high temperature. Several experiments have been conducted, and the results have been analyzed. It has been found that the collected water from the panel after 40 min of cooling gained a temperature of 10 • C approximately, during December 2016. Eventually, the efficiency was improved by 10.35% (without using MPPT) using water at ambient temperature (24 • C) compared to the non-cooled panel. Moreover, the temperature of the panel during solar peak hours dropped from 64.3 • C to 32 • C and from 59 • C to 27 • C in 3 min for the back and front surface, respectively. These results, which are the first of their kind in Qatar, constitute good incentives and pave the way for further investigation to enhance PV efficiency in harsh environments. This would be of paramount significance, especially for scaling up PV deployment, as is planned in Qatar and GCC countries in their 2030 vision.

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Failure and degradation modes and rates of PV modules in a hot-dry climate: Results after 16 years of field exposure

Cited by 31 publications

References 4 publications

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Determination of Dominant Failure Modes Using FMECA on the Field Deployed c-Si Modules Under Hot-Dry Desert Climate

Novel Design for Thermal Management of PV Cells in Harsh Environmental Conditions

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