The renewable energy market is currently booming, with large numbers of PV systems being installed throughout the world. However, a primary objective of any PV power system is to ensure that the system operates continuously and reliably. As Vicente Salas from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) explains, this aspect takes on special relevance in the case of utility-scale PV projects.
PV modules are subjected to various loads during installation handling. Research teams from the Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) and Hanwha Q CELLS attended the installations of PV modules in order to develop various test sequences for quantifying the effects of handling loads on the modules. As a result of these observations, lab tests have been designed to evaluate the impact of module-handling loads on cell cracking in the modules. Some rules for module handling are subsequently proposed.
Accurate forecasting is becoming increasingly important as PV penetration grows. Jan Remund of Meteotest looks at some of the recent developments in forecasting science and the work going on to improve this vital aspect of solar’s interaction with the grid.
It was a turbulent year for solar finance in 2015 with big successes, more innovation and a few nasty surprises too. Mercom Capital’s Raj Prabhu takes a forensic look at solar finance in the last 12 months and the clues offered for the year ahead.
Solar’s widely heralded shift to self-consumption models has failed to happen to any meaningful degree. But as it remains PV’s only viable future business model, it’s time to get the project back on track, writes Gaëtan Masson.
As the economics of solar improve, merchant projects are already in place in Chile and various parts of the US. However, as lawyers from Chadbourne explain, financing them is
not a straightforward business.
An eight-page special report on the growth of solar in the MENA region, focusing on market opportunities, policy, technology, and operations and maintenance.
This issue of PV Tech Power explores how the solar industry can capitalise on the momentum from December’s Paris climate agreement, and the policy and finance levers it must pull to cement its place as a major global energy source. We also feature a series of articles focusing on Japan, whose future growth as a solar end market looks less certain than it has in recent years as it encounters political headwinds. We also feature the usual in-depth offering of technical briefings, with module handling, large-scale storage deployment and PV forecasting among the key themes in this edition.
The solar industry is going through the final stages of correcting its supply–demand imbalance, with the decision-making on technology choice for the next generation of GW-scale factory expansions becoming a key strategic issue for leading manufacturers. In contrast to previous capacity expansion phases – where new entrants largely copied known process flows and technology types – the next round of technology additions is seeing a broader range of influences, indicative of a new type of technology roadmap unfolding for the industry as a whole.
The backsheet is the first barrier for ensuring the reliability and durability of PV modules for 25+ years. To reduce cost, backsheets with a variety of compositions and constructions have been developed and introduced in PV modules. For PV module manufacturers, a major challenge is choosing a low-cost backsheet that can maintain the current levels of high reliability and durability performance. In the work reported in this paper, the properties of several backsheets of various compositions and constructions were compared.
