TÜV Rheinland PTL, a standards developing organization (SDO) for the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), has successfully initiated the creation of two new American National Standards and is seeking industry participation in the respective standards working groups. Stakeholders include manufacturers of PV modules, project investors and developers, utility companies, PV consumers, and incentive programs, as well as engineering and insurance companies.
The new standards are:
- TUV-R 71732-01:201X: Qualification PLUS (Q+) Testing for PV Modules – Test and Sampling Requirements
- TUV-R 71733-01:201X: Quality Management System (QMS) Requirements for PV Manufacturing
These two standards are primarily based on two protocols developed by U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and key stakeholders of the industry.
Q+ test and sampling requirements go beyond the current qualification testing per the IEC 61215 standard. The objective of the test sequence is to test for degradation losses and reliability failures caused by components (encapsulant, connectors, cables, junction boxes, and bypass diodes) and modules (solder bond, ribbon, cells, and high system voltages).
All test modules for the Q+ program must be chosen at random from a production line without allowing any engineering or preproduction samples. Qualification testing and certification per IEC 61215 will be the pre- and co-requisite for the Q+ testing and certification.
TUV-R 71733-01:201X describes the QMS requirements specifically for PV module manufacturing. The objective of the QMS certification is to minimize the quality issues specific to the PV module production, such as storage and production environment, supply chain and manufacturing traceability, selection of vendors, incoming inspections of materials and sub-assemblies, routine tests on 100% of the product, burn-in and lot-acceptance tests, and a periodic monitoring program. QMS will be the co-requisite for the Q+ testing and certification.
“When creating Qualification PLUS, we did our best to address known issues and increase statistical sampling without adding unnecessary costs,” says Sarah Kurtz, Ph.D., principal scientist and reliability group manager at NREL. “We hope that it will prove useful to customers seeking a higher level of confidence in PV module reliability.”
The California Energy Commission (CEC) plans to propose the Q+ program as an optional set of tests for its Eligible Hardware List.
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