Featured in Connected to quality – 04-2020

EL to the field: Assessing plant health

Electroluminescence imaging is gaining traction in the field at project sites for operations and maintenance and to support PV plant mergers and acquisitions. EL testing can help PV asset owners evaluate power plant system health and can predict potential future underperformance and failures. Tristan Erion-Lorico, the head of PVEL’s module business, and dowstream business chief Andrew Sundling discuss the outlook for this enabling technology.

By

pv magazine

06 Apr 2020

Image: PVEL

Electroluminescence (EL) images show contrasting dark and light regions of the cells inside PV modules: “Good” energy-producing regions appear light, while “bad” inactive regions with defects appear dark. When the EL camera has sufficient image resolution, it can also reveal cracks, microcracks, and other cell-level defects that are not detectable using visual or infrared/thermographic inspection …

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