Government Energy Policy, Business and Technology

Assuring Solar Modules Will Last for Decades

Renewable Energy World: The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is co-leading an international push to assure the reliability of solar panels — an assurance demanded by customers, manufacturers, lenders, and utilities.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems affected by defective or underperforming panels is very low — just 0.1 percent per year according to new data of 50,000 systems analyzed by the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). But in the face of pressure to keep lowering prices, it is essential that quality be maintained and assured, said Sarah Kurtz, a Research Fellow at NREL who manages the lab's PV Module Reliability Test and Evaluation Group.

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