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Featured in Factory floor – 09-2026

Module cooling: too hot to handle

Even after the record-breaking heat waves of this summer and associated performance losses at PV plants across the northern hemisphere, active cooling for solar arrays remains a difficult market prospect. Developers might be a bit more interested in preventing temperature-related losses, but in most cases, the numbers still don’t quite add up.
Lior Kahana
By
Lior Kahana
Cooling in the field is difficult to implement, so module manufacturers are working to ensure their products are resilient to high temperatures. | Image: Aiko

Europe’s intense heat waves are drawing fresh attention to a longstanding problem: Abundant sunlight can also push PV modules beyond their most efficient operating temperatures. Crystalline-silicon modules typically lose around 0.4% to 0.65% of their performance for every 1 C increase in temperature above 25 C. “Based on the operational data we reviewed from solar …

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