PVinsight will host its 10-year anniversary celebration on Thursday next week, which will be attended by leading industry professionals in the solar sector.
The professionals will experience the company’s mobile labs and testing capabilities at Nelson Mandela University’s new Science Centre on the Ocean Sciences Campus.
Testing photovoltaic (PV) modules or solar panels for solar plants has become more critical than ever with the huge growth in solar PV plants in SA’s commercial and industrial space.
Commercial and industrial level solar plants are a major financial investment and solar modules should be independently tested pre-installation and once installed to ensure they meet the manufacturer’s specifications.
PVinsight is the only accredited mobile laboratory testing service in SA, offering in-lab and on-site PV testing services.
In August, the company is celebrating ten years of operation, in conjunction with the growth of the PV industry.
The company is run by a team of physicists and researchers with more than 30 years of research and experience in PV systems.
It was spun out of the Photovoltaics Research Group in NMU’s physics department.
“We test modules at all levels, from the utility-scale that feeds into the electricity grid to plants that power industries, companies and communities,” PVinsight’s CEO and co-founder, and professor of physics, Ernest van Dyk said.
“Our testing is done according to the International Electrotechnical Commission standards and we are accredited as a testing laboratory with the South African National Accreditation System.”
The independent laboratory specialises in verifying claimed module performance.
This is essential as defects can creep into modules at the manufacturer level, with the cell quality, cell interconnections, as well as the fabrication of the entire module.
Damage, such as cracks, can happen during the manufacturing process or when modules are transported, handled or installed.
The modules also need to be tested during the warranty period and over time to check whether they are performing as per the manufacturer’s specifications.
Many operations are finding that their PV plants have underperforming and failing modules.
Many companies, insurers and investors have not been aware of how essential it is to include independent testing in their contracts, but this is changing as the industry matures.
“If the manufacturer knows their modules will be tested, they have to make sure the quality is according to specification across the entire range of modules,” PVinsight’s operations manager Dr Jacqui Crozier McCleland, who has a PhD in physics, said.
PVinsight has two mobile units which operate countrywide, with teams able to test all module sizes and power ratings.
The tests can also be used in warranty claims.
When clients are armed with an accredited module report, it greatly empowers them in terms of recourse with the manufacturer or project developer should any problems be detected.
PVinsight’s latest method of testing to check whether modules manufactured by large PV plants have defects or damage is called electroluminescence (EL) imaging.
It is a huge game-changer for business and industry in the country, achieving the best testing rate in SA.
“Large PV plants have hundreds of thousands of modules,” McCleland said.
“For example, a large 70MW PV plant would have about 300,000 modules, of which 300 to 500 modules need to be independently tested to give the purchaser greater peace of mind that the PV modules are without defects or that they meet the manufacturers’ specifications in terms of quality, power output and lifespan.
“With EL imaging, they can test 500 to 800 modules per night to see if they are damaged in any way.
“We test the modules at night so that the EL camera can detect the emitted EL light without interference from other light sources.
“Testing at night also means the PV plant does not lose production during the day.”
To further advance testing in SA, the company has formed a strategic partnership with German company AePVI (Aerial PV Inspection GmbH).
AePVI co-founder Andreas Fladung said: “Today, innovative high-volume EL measurements in the field enable clear and meaningful quality analyses at cell level concerning production, transport and installation loads, ageing processes and environmental events.
“No other measurement method currently offers this depth of analysis.”
The light emitted by the modules during the EL imaging test is not in the visible spectrum and it picks up defects that are invisible to the naked eye, such as broken cells.
“With broken cells [which show up in the image as dark areas], the module won’t produce as much power as if they were all uniform,” McCleland said.
“There are also sometimes manufacturing defects that decrease the module’s performance.”
In addition to the need to test the new modules coming onto the market, the original utility-scale PV plants that are now 10 years old also need to be tested.
Performance issues and degradation can occur over time, and as such it is important to check these plants so that decisions can be made about how to improve their performance or replace and update modules.
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