German quality assurance and testing centre TÜV Rheinland has announced that it will present a traceability testing service for modules at Intersolar Europe 2024.
TÜV Rheinland said the service aims to establish the requirements for traceability management as a standard in the solar PV industry, while it also can help project developers, purchasers and investors trace the documentation of the supply chain of their purchased modules on a project-by-project basis.
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The service will be based on the ISO 9001 management system standard, which is globally recognised for quality management, defining how to establish, implement, maintain and continually improve a quality management system.
TÜV Rheinland adopts a three-step approach in this service, with the first one is based on ISO 9001 and any other project-specific requirements of customers. In the second step, TÜV Rheinland examines the existing management processes and the tools used for traceability, helping customers cope with potentially stricter traceability requirements in the future.
In the third step, TÜV Rheinland looks at the entire traceability chain and determines the level of detail to which manufacturers can document traceability.
Maximilian Lieberz, business development manager at TÜV Rheinland, said: “TÜV Rheinland’s traceability service looks at the documentation of the entire PV module supply chain. We look at whether and to what level of detail the systems, tools and processes used by manufacturers can ensure traceability. On this basis, purchasers of modules can also improve their quality assurance in a sustainable way.”
This service will be available worldwide. TÜV Rheinland added that it had audited more than 70 factories from “seven of the world’s ten largest PV module manufacturers” in Asia for traceability in 2023 and 2024 to develop the service, since the rapid development of the solar PV industry and the increasing global importance of ESG issues, including traceability, contributed to the development of this service.
On that note, it finalised its investment into a new US base, the Technology and Innovation Centre in Boxborough, Massachusetts last year. This facility is equipped to conduct tests and certifications for sectors including electrical product safety, medical device testing, electromagnetic compatibility testing, robotics, semiconductor manufacturing, inverters and energy storage.
