Review of photovoltaic module degradation, field inspection techniques and techno-economic assessment

Koester, L.; Lindig, Sascha; Louwen, Atse; Astigarraga, A.; Manzolini, Giampaolo; Moser, David

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2022.112616

Cited by 57 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Thereby, the CPN is the sum of costs due to missing energy produced, C down In previous CPN related work, the total duration of a ticket from opening to closing was divided into several periods, namely, detection, response and repair time. 5,24 While this information would allow very In this study, historical O&M events that occurred in PV plants are evaluated. Thereby, the focus is on gaining a greater understanding of performance impairing issues in the field, and of the cost and effectiveness of performed corrective maintenance measures.…”

Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When applying different scenarios, different detection and mitigation measures can be weighed against each other to evaluate the most cost effective solution. Recently, insightful studies have been conducted looking into inverter failure, PID and soiling mitigation strategies by Herz et al 22 and defective bypass diodes, PID and cell cracks detected by using electroluminescence imaging by Koester et al 24 Nevertheless, these studies are still based on a scenario‐based analysis.…”

Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In previous CPN related work, the total duration of a ticket from opening to closing was divided into several periods, namely, detection, response and repair time 5,24 . While this information would allow very interesting insights, the investigation of the collected tickets indicated that this information is usually not provided, and only a start (event/failure time) and an end time (resolution time) is recorded.…”

Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Towards the development of an optimized Decision Support System for the PV industry: A comprehensive statistical and economical assessment of over 35,000 O&M tickets

Lindig

Gallmetzer

Herz

et al. 2022

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Due to the overall declining costs of photovoltaic systems, market players in the operation and maintenance sector are under increasing price pressure when offering their services. The automation and standardization of maintenance and failure tickets as well as their statistical and economical evaluation are key to ensure optimal yield and long lifetime. A thorough understanding of typical faults, classified through a standardized taxonomy, can be a pathway of developing location and technology specific decision support, offering cost‐time efficient solutions to reduce component downtime and costs in case of failure appearance. A useful method for this approach is the Cost Priority Number, a methodology to assess technical failures and their economic impact in energy systems. In this work, this method is further improved to be applied to individual use cases to make it useful in the actual operation of PV plants. A standardized ticket taxonomy for the operational phase of PV systems has been developed where more than 35,000 PV systems' tickets have been statistically evaluated, and a fully automated methodology to calculate the cost of individual maintenance tickets has been developed.

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Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Cost Priority Number Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards the development of an optimized Decision Support System for the PV industry: A comprehensive statistical and economical assessment of over 35,000 O&M tickets

Lindig

Gallmetzer

Herz

et al. 2022

Progress in Photovoltaics

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“…Another factor is the stability of the recorded EL signal: The intensity of luminescence radiation depends exponentially on temperature and voltage. A cell temperature increase will result in a reduction of luminescence signal intensity [14,15]. Although a small effect, it needs to be investigated and quantified for future EL inspections.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the effects of photovoltaic module heating during electroluminescence inspection

et al. 2023

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The application of electroluminescence imaging of photovoltaic modules increased in the last years, due to the reliable and detailed identification of degradation and failures. In future plants the time-consuming connection of power supplies could be overcome by use of inverters with bi-directional functionality, allowing backpowering of connected module strings directly. Temperature influences the open-circuit voltage of photovoltaic modules and must therefore be considered during backpowering. This work investigates the heating due to backpowering of photovoltaic modules of different types during electroluminescence inspection. The temperature increase until saturation is estimated by energy balance calculations and experimentally verified to be around 20 °C, with resulting voltage drops of up to 3 V. Further, these changes have an effect on the recorded luminescence intensity: a decrease of the electroluminescence signal intensity between beginning of backpowering and reaching saturation temperature is shown. For application of the results to a real-world scenario, the electroluminescence window of an electroluminescence-ready inverter is introduced, giving the boundaries of current and voltage that can be supplied. Combined with a simulation of the dark current–voltage curves of a connected photovoltaic module string, the electroluminescence inspection possibilities are visualized. Finally, the applicability of this heating phenomenon for snow melting is discussed.

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“…As thoroughly reviewed in [ 9 , 10 , 13 ], numerous electrical signatures attributed to cell cracks have been reported, such as the elevations of series resistance ( R s ) [ 19 – 27 ] and saturation current densities of the second diode ( J 02 ) in the two-diode model of the PV cell/module [ 28 – 31 ], reduction in the short-circuit current ( I sc ) [ 19 , 22 , 26 ], shunt resistance ( R sh ) [ 30 , 32 – 35 ], and fill factor (FF) [ 20 , 36 ], depending on the development of cell cracks. However, the extent of power loss in PV modules with cell cracks (particularly, with microcracks) is quite small.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar cell cracks within a photovoltaic module: Characterization by AC impedance spectroscopy

Tanahashi

Hsu²

2022

PLoS ONE

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Various cell crack modes (with or without electrically inactive cell areas) can be induced in crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells within a PV module through natural thermomechanical stressors such as strong winds, heavy snow, and large hailstones. Although degradation in the performance of PV modules by cell cracks has been reported occasionally, the mode-dependent evolutions in the electrical signatures of cracks have not yet been elucidated. In this study, we propose that the reduction of the time constant in the AC impedance spectra, which is caused by the elevation of minority-carrier recombination in the p–n junction of a PV cell, is a ubiquitous signature of cracked PV cells encapsulated in a commercially available PV module. Several other characteristics derived from the illuminated current-voltage (I–V) and dark I–V data significantly evolved only in PV cells with inactive cell areas. We also propose that the evaluation by carrier recombination is a crucial diagnostic technique for detecting all crack modes, including microcracks, in wafer-based PV modules.

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Review of photovoltaic module degradation, field inspection techniques and techno-economic assessment

Cited by 57 publications

References 39 publications

Towards the development of an optimized Decision Support System for the PV industry: A comprehensive statistical and economical assessment of over 35,000 O&M tickets

Towards the development of an optimized Decision Support System for the PV industry: A comprehensive statistical and economical assessment of over 35,000 O&M tickets

Evaluating the effects of photovoltaic module heating during electroluminescence inspection

Solar cell cracks within a photovoltaic module: Characterization by AC impedance spectroscopy

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