Technology and Climate Trends in PV Module Degradation

To sustain the commercial success of photovoltaic (PV) technology it is vital to know how power output decreases with time. Unfortunately, it can take years to accurately measure the long-term degradation of new products, but past experience on older products can provide a basis for prediction of degradation rates of new products. An extensive search resulted in more than 2000 reported degradation rates with more than 1100 reported rates that include some or all IV parameters. In this paper we discuss how the details of the degradation data give clues about the degradation mechanisms and how they depend on technology and climate zones as well as how they affect current and voltage differently. The largest contributor to maximum power decline for crystalline Si technologies is short circuit current (or maximum current) degradation and to a lesser degree loss in fill factor. Thinfilm technologies are characterized by a much higher contribution from fill factor particularly for humid climates. Crystalline Si technologies in hot & humid climates also display a higher probability to show a mixture of losses (not just short circuit current losses) compared to other climates. The distribution for the module I-V parameters (electrical mismatch) was found to change with field exposure. The distributions not only widened but also developed a tail at the lower end, skewing the distribution.