JMP Applications in Photovoltaic Reliability (Presentation): NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

The ability to accurately predict power delivery over the course of time is of vital importance to the growth of the photovoltaic (PV) industry. Two key cost drivers are the efficiency with which sunlight is converted into power and secondly how this relationship develops over time. The accurate knowledge of power decline over time, also known as degradation rates, is essential and important to all stakeholders--utility companies, integrators, investors, and scientist alike. Outdoor testing plays a vital part in quantifying degradation rates of different technologies in various climates. Due to seasonal changes, however, several complete cycles (typically 3-5 years) need to be completed traditionally to obtain reasonably accurate degradation rates. In a rapidly evolving industry such atime span is often unacceptable and the need exists to determine degradation rates more accurately in a shorter period of time. Advanced time series modeling such as ARIMA (Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average) modeling can be utilized to decrease the required time span and is compared with some non-linear modeling. In addition, it will be demonstrated how the JMP 9 map feature was used toreveal important technological trends by climate.