ADVANCED INTERCOMPARISON TESTING OF PV MODULES IN EUROPEAN TEST LABORATORIES

摘要

The EC-funded Integrated Project PERFORMANCE commenced in January 2006 includes a subproject devoted to improving the comparability of PV module performance measurements among European test laboratories and to elaborating guidelines for harmonised measurement practices in the PV industry. Recently published results of international round-robin tests with PV modules revealed measurement differences between laboratories [1,2,3] that proved to be significant for thin-film and multi-junction devices. This shows a clear need for the development of new and adapted measurement procedures suitable also for use in the PV industry. In this context, comprehensive intercomparison tests with PV modules were performed that reflected the state-of-the-art of present PV technologies. In particular, several high efficiency c-Si technologies were studied for which problems are known to occur in measurements with pulsed solar simulators [4,5,6,7]. Of significance is that for the first time our investigations were not restricted to the comparison of STC performance data but also were aimed at understanding and analysing measuring effects. Consequently technology-specific measurement programmes were defined, such as variation of the measuring parameters of the solar simulator and preconditioning by light exposure. In addition, we documented the variety of measuring equipment (i.e. solar simulator performance) and measurement techniques in use. This paper presents the results of the first round robin performed with 5 PV module types covering the range of commercially crystalline silicon cell technologies (size, wafer type, high efficiency). Our studies revealed a 2% spread in maximum power for 6 participating test laboratories. The resulting database will assist laboratories in further developing their measurement hardware and techniques. Guidelines and adapted measurement procedures for the PV industry can also be elaborated.