VDE Testing and Certification Institute launches US subsidiary

February 28, 2013
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email

A leading German technical and engineering testing company has launched a US subsidiary, called VDE Americas, in San Jose, California, to evaluate performance yields at PV power plants in the US, Canada, Mexico and Latin America.

The President of VDE Americas, John Sedgwick, told PV-Tech: “Combined, those offer territories that we think have the potential for explosive growth.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Try Premium for just $1

  • Full premium access for the first month at only $1
  • Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
  • Cancel anytime during the trial period

Premium Benefits

  • Expert industry analysis and interviews
  • Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
  • Exclusive event discounts

Or get the full Premium subscription right away

Or continue reading this article for free

“There is 30GW installed in Germany to date so there have been a lot of lessons learned in PV at a large scale nationwide. PV at a larger scale is very new in the US, whereas in Germany it is fairly mature.

“It's not that anyone is turning away from Europe, but the markets in the US are relatively untapped and there's a very nice growth rate.”

VDE also entered into a partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems which was announced at the PV Rollout conference in Atlanta, Georgia, to offer bankability assurance designed to meet investor, insurance and EPC/IPP demands for solar PV power plants. The new quality mark – VDE Quality Tested for PV Power Plants – verifies quality, performance and the safety of the system.

“There's no international standard of certification for plants as a whole,” said Sedgwick. “It leads to a lot of approaches as to how you do quality assurance performance yield on a plant. The approach that VDE and Fraunhofer are using has been developed over many years as an optimal way in the quality assurance performance yield.

“VDE's services are addressing a significant hole in the PV industry; that hole is that there is really no formal certification process for PV plants as a whole. What that leads to is a higher percentage of risk on the part of the investors and banks that are being asked to fund these financial assets that are expected to perform for 25 years.”

Professor Eicke Weber, Director of Fraunhofer ISE, said: “There is enormous potential for growth of PV installations worldwide and with increasingly competitive price levels there is a strong need to ensure the safety and performance of the system as a whole.

“I am sure that the product portfolio that Fraunhofer ISE and VDE have developed together, will support the American and global market.”

Sedgwick has 25 years of experience in the solar industry and his last firm Solaicx, which made single crystal silicon ingots, was sold to MEMC in 2010 for US$76 million.
 

Read Next

Premium
October 24, 2025
Marcel Suri explores the datasets that will help improve the accuracy of PV output estimation and drive better performance.
October 24, 2025
US solar tracker manufacturer Nextracker and Saudi-based energy company Abunayyan Holding have formed a joint venture (JV) in Saudi Arabia.
October 24, 2025
The Saudi state-owned renewables developer Masdar has begun construction on a giant solar-plus-storage project in Abu Dhabi.
October 23, 2025
The average price of a solar PPA signed in Europe in Q3 2025 fell below €35/MWh, reaching €34.25/MWh, according to LevelTen Energy.
October 23, 2025
Infrastructure investment firm Nuveen Infrastructure has secured US$171 million in financing for a 137MW solar PV plant in South Korea.
October 23, 2025
US solar manufacturer T1 Energy sold approximately 725MW of solar modules in Q3 2025, as it continues to expand US manufacturing capabilities.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Solar Media Events
November 25, 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Solar Media Events
December 2, 2025
Málaga, Spain
Solar Media Events
February 3, 2026
London, UK
Solar Media Events
March 10, 2026
Frankfurt, Germany
Solar Media Events
March 24, 2026
Lisbon, Portugal