OPV Testing and Existing Standards

The JRC's European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) is a European reference lab for performance measurement of innovative photovoltaic technologies. Organic photovoltaic (OPVs) are a promising technology with the potential to provide a much cheaper source of electricity for devices and in buildings. They are complex electric systems and a lot need to be understood about their stability under different stresses (light, humidity, temperature). In this presentation a summary of the issues and criticalities found at ESTI during recent ageing tests of OPVs are presented.

The awareness of the challenges related to stability testing of OPVs is presented during the introduction to the event  from  Suren GEVORGYAN, DTU in referee to the process of establishing standards for OPV performance qualification

The staff of the JRC's European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) have been extensively involved in the international standardization process for photovoltaic devices, by providing scientific and technological know-how to working groups in the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) for over 20 years.

The presentation will outline the existing PV measurement and type approval standards, in particular the development of the type approval standards, and look at the challenges facing OPV devices.