Photovoltaic module qualification testing, light‐soak test equipment improvements, and module performance characterization

This paper gives an overview, status and results of the various tasks performed by the ‘‘PV Module Exploratory/Qualification Testing and Test Method Development’’ Team in the Photovoltaics Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The work presented here involves: results from module qualification testing performed on commercial products and R&D prototypes from various PV manufacturers, improvements that have been made in our indoor light‐soak test equipment, and module performance characterization, which includes I–V measurements vs irradiance and temperature, and related work using these results as inputs for module energy ratings studies. All these activities are part of an ongoing effort to interact with the PV industry to help improve module performance and reliability, as well as to validate and improve PV module test methods, techniques, and procedures.