Norway’s Glint Solar, a developer of software for utility-scale solar developers, has developed a new module that maps the variability of PV degradation across Europe, providing useful planning information to project developers.
“The map module pinpoints regions with minimal PV degradation, revealing variations, even within countries. End-users are able to simply click on a point on the map and receive a two-decimal numerical score between 0 and 10, corresponding to the location’s degradation severity,” co-founder and chief commercial officer Even J. Kvelland told pv magazine.
It was completed in partnership with Norway's Institute of Energy Technology (IFE) and it draws on two studies about modeling the impact of combined climatic loads on the module's maximum power output, namely “Global Climate Data Processing and Mapping of Degradation Mechanisms,” published in Energies, and “Modeling Outdoor Service Lifetime Prediction of PV Modules: Effects of Combined Climatic Stressors on PV Module Power Degradation,” published in IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.
The degradation calculation considers various climate-related stressors, including hydrolysis, which is stress due to relative humidity and temperature, photodegradation triggered by high UV radiation, and thermomechanical stress which is primarily driven by rapid temperature fluctuations.
Solar developers can use it to make informed site comparisons. “This type of information is important to developers in the early stage of a project, providing valuable site-specific knowledge to developers for preliminary project sizing, for example,” said Kvelland, adding that site decisions can be made with the “highest likelihood of receiving permitting approval and ultimately get built.”
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The map module is part of the Glint Solar cloud-based software for identifying suitable locations for solar parks that take into account parameters such as the distance to the grid or substations, topography, soil depth, and solar radiation.
Glint Solar, founded in 2020, is providing relevant geographic information system (GIS) data, analysis tools, design capabilities and project overview tools for PV developers, optimizing and growing their pipelines.
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