PID

Asier Ukar, director of the Spanish unit of German technical advisory PI Berlin, tells pv magazine about his experiences of conducting quality control inspections in Chinese factories during the global pandemic.

Scientists in Germany have developed a “heavy duty” test to provide insight into the long term effects of potential induced degradation in PV modules. The tests go well beyond those established by IEC standards and seek to guide manufacturers and investors on the best choice of materials – encapsulants in particular – when it comes to long term PID resistance.

German headquartered PV manufacturer Aleo Solar has announced plans to introduce the module in the new year. Like many of its rivals, the company is moving to a larger cell size for the new product, which it says will offer up to 333 W output from a 60-cell format.

A study has estimated the cost of PV project soiling may increase from €3-5 billion last year to €4-7 billion by 2023 due to more extensive deployment in high insolation and soiling-affected regions, such as China and India. The authors of the paper outlined the potential of soiling mitigation technologies while stressing more R&D is needed to reduce costs and for the adoption of such measures on a larger scale.

While PV module makers are attempting to get the best possible scores for their products on 3rd party tests, 3rd-party testing providers are also offering competing products to rank products. We look at what’s similar and what’s different in the tests.

From a little known niche just a few years ago, floating solar has quickly grown to more than 1 GW of installed capacity worldwide, and a source of great hope for the industry’s future, particularly in countries where space for solar is at a premium. pv magazine spoke with experts from leading floating PV test centers in Singapore and the Netherlands to outline the challenges still faced by floating PV as the technology moves towards major growth.

At pv magazine’s first Latin American Quality Roundtable, held at Intersolar South America in Sao Paulo, we were joined by international players, like JinkoSolar and DuPont, as well as public and private Latin American entities, all of which are striving to bring more quality to the solar PV supply chain, from the U.S.-Mexico border to Tierra del Fuego.

At its joint exhibition with Dow Corning at the SNEC show in Shanghai last month, Dow Elastomers showcased its ENGAGE PV POE solution, a polyolefin-based material that can be used in manufacturing both top and bottom encapsulant films for many module types.