PV module energy rating standard IEC 61853-3 intercomparison and best practice guidelines for implementation and validation

Abstract

<p>The IEC 61853 standard series aims to provide a standardized measure for PV module energy rating, namely the Climate Specific Energy Rating (CSER). For this purpose, it defines procedures for the experimental determination of input data and algorithms for calculating the CSER. However, some steps leave room for interpretation regarding the specific implementation. To analyze the impact of these ambiguities, the comparability of results and the clarity of the algorithm for calculating the CSER in part 3 of the standard, an intercomparison is performed among research organizations with 10 different implementations of the algorithm. We share the same input data, obtained by measurement of a commercial crystalline silicon PV module, among the participating organizations. Each participant then uses their individual implementations of the algorithm to calculate the resulting CSER values. The initial blind comparison reveals differences of 0.133 (14.7%) in CSER. After several comparison phases, a best practice approach is defined, which reduces the difference by a factor of 210 to below 0.001 (0.1%) in CSER for two independent PV modules. The best practice presented in this paper establishes clear guidelines for the numerical treatment of the spectral correction and power matrix extrapolation, where the methods in the standard are not clearly defined. Additionally, we provide input data and results for the PV community to test their implementations of the standard’s algorithm. To identify the source of the deviations, we introduce a climate data diagnostic set. Based on our experiences, we give recommendations for the future development of the standard.</p>

Representativeness of Energy Rating acc. to IEC 61853 for Different Locations in Middle and South Europe

“…For the ER calculation, this study adopts the methodology presented in Ref. [17], which has been validated through a Round Robin study to reduce ambiguities in certain steps of the standard procedure. The implementation tools from Ref.…”

“…[19] However, since our ground-based spectral irradiance ranges only up to 1100 or 1700 nm, we transform it into 29 "Kato bands" following the procedure in Ref. [17]. We then integrate within the respective band's limits, based on the equation for SMM from IEC 60 904-7 [20,21] Table 1.…”

“…For our comparison of standard versus site-specific climate profiles starting in the next section, we use reference data set for a crystalline silicon PV module provided by a Round Robin study that contains the module's intrinsic angular and thermal coefficients, SR, and Power Matrix. [17] These data are necessary for the angular and spectral correction, module temperature calculation, and the power output extrapolation.…”