Following four years of PV systems performance and reliability research, the IEA PVPS programme's Task 13 has begun delivery on a series of five reports summarizing these years of intensive research activities.
These reports focus on several aspects of PV performance and reliability and cover the main aspects of quality-oriented activities in the PV sector. The fourth of the five reports, is now available.
The first three reports published focused on PV performance and the impactof PV module failure, for both crystalline silicon and thin-filmtechnologies. They showed that the question of quality and reliability canbe managed in a scientific way and that in recent years much progress hasbeen made, in parallel with the growth of the PV markets and industry.
This fourth report investigates data supplied from operating PV plants in different countries in order to improve understanding of efficiency and reliability issues of current state-of-the-art PV systems.
This new and fourth report concludes that PV systems installed in recent years are in general "delivering what the salesman says", with country differences in annual yield that can well be explained by irradiation or climate zone differences. Based on the analysis of more than 600 PV plants in key countries around the world, the report also identifies numerous root cause of faults that lead to system downtime or low efficiency, expressed by a low overall Performance Ratio.
These reports are establishing a landmark in PV Performance and Reliability assessment, building on the reputation of independence and quality of the IEA PVPS programme since 1993.
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