Abstract

In the last 18 years PV solar power has increased from 0 to 500 GWp approximately as indicated by International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Program IEA PVPS [1]. However, an issue that has been left aside is the maintenance of the constituent elements of a solar PV plant, this mainly because the elements are still under warranty. One of the fundamental players in a solar PV plant is the Photo Voltaic Solar Module PVSM, which usually has a guarantee of around 20 years. However, it has been proven that in practice many modules have presented unexpected failures, e.g., power degradation faster than what the manufacturer considered when defining the warranty. Considering an average annual degradation of 1%, it would be expected that within the first 10 years, the PV modules of a PV plant present a 10% degradation in their performance. In this work it is carried on a characterization of the electrical behavior of a bifacial photovoltaic solar module obtained through static and transient analyses operating under no-fault and fault conditions at controlled conditions using the Flasher IV +AAA Solar Simulator of Eternalsun. Later, the response of photovoltaic solar modules, for their healthy and faulty operation, were studied. As a result, it is obtained a characterization of the electrical behavior of bifacial photovoltaic solar module under no-fault and fault conditions at controlled level.