Photovoltaic is one of the most important renewable energy technologies worldwide. Reliability and performance of photovoltaic components and systems are though essential. Initiated by the European research infrastructure project SOPHIA, a series of workshops on relevant PV topics has been initiated.
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and Fraunhofer ISE organized the international ‘SOPHIA Photovoltaics-Module Reliability Workshop” from 28th to 29th April, 2016 at AIT premises in Vienna with the support of the Austrian PV Technology platform.
More than 70 participants from 11 countries including the United States, Japan and South Korea were attending. Coming from industry, research and different international stakeholder groups, and PV Associations they discussed issues of long-term PV-reliability, PV-system analysis and forecast, the upcoming comprehensive area of building integration of photovoltaic systems and ongoing international efforts towards standardization.
The workshop gave space for networking, discussions, and exchanging information on the following topics
• Novel materials and challenges for PV reliability testing
• Photovoltaic reliability issues on system level
• Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV)
• Novel developments in PV characterization
In addition, a tour through AIT’s laboratory infrastructure offered an insight into specific activities in state-of-the-art PV module analysis and evaluation.