Michele Pellegrino

Changes of solar cell parameters during damp‐heat exposure

This work was supported in part by the European Commission under FP7 grant N° 262533 SOPHIA (INFRA-2010- 1.1.22_CP-CSA-Infra) and by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) under project ‘Stability and Performance of Photovoltaics (STAPP)’ (contract no: EP/H040331/1).

Characterization and validation tests on Ecosole C-modules first prototypes

ECOSOLE is an European collaborative Project started in August 2012 that involves several industrial and institutional partners with the aim to develop a complete and innovative concentrating photovoltaic system. During the first two years of activity, several specific components as cells, optics, modules and tracker have been designed and developed. This work reports the description of these devices and the main results of the characterization campaigns carried out to define their technical features.

Testing and Standards for new BIPV products

BIPV components provide added values to the building and for this application they should be designed to perform functions as defined in the REGULATION (EU) No 305/2011 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 9 March 2011. So the need for new BIPV products strongly exists and specific standards and testing must be appointed. At the moment the prEN 50583:2012 is just in preparation at European level. It contains links to existing Standards already applied for traditional building components. This paper gives an overview of the general requirements imposed by this Standard, introduces the European project Bfirst, aimed to realize specific BIPV products, and present preliminary results made at ENEA on traditional modules for optical and thermal requirements that could be applied to new BIPV products.

Set of protocols for overall testing for CPV

The success of a new CPV prototype depends on modules quality and assembly compliance with existing Standards, such as IEC 62108, 62670, 62787, and others still under development/approval for performance evaluation. The overall CPV system reliability is based on the quality of the subcomponents such as the optics, the cells, the electronics and the assembly of the whole system, but there is a dramatic lack of technical specifications for new prototypes to comply with. The Italian project SCOOP (SOLAR CONCENTRATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS) was aimed at developing an Italian network of laboratories and industrial facilities to enter the CPV market. The project, funded by the Ministry of Industry, started in 2009 and ended at the end of 2013. SCOOP addressed the development of solar cells, optical systems and inverters, to be used in four different CPV prototypes. The development of a network of laboratories specialized to test, verify and check components such as plastic materials, optics, cells, electronics and module/assembly at prototype and industrial scale has been one of the main targets of the project. Within the project a set of protocols for the testing of subcomponents, components, modules and the final systems have been defined and validated.