New facilities launched at the European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) will allow it to assess the performance of new and improved photovoltaic (PV) devices, to perform pre-normative research and to help develop international standards for the industry.

The new EUR 3-million facilities were officially inaugurated on June 24 by JRC Director General Dominique Ristori in the presence of dignitaries from the scientific, technical, industrial and political communities. The new lab, which is located at the Joint Research Centre’s site in Ispra, Italy, offers a unique range of precision measurement capabilities that can be used to conduct research into factors influencing the cost effectiveness of photovoltaic installations. In addition, it will enable ESTI to maintain and extend its role as a European reference laboratory, particularly for next generation PV technologies.

The new capabilities cover, for example, power calibration for high performance silicon, thin film, and concentrated PV or organic PV, which will in turn contribute to the promotion of innovation in PV technologies in the EU. ESTI's role is to build confidence in the comparability of measurements of PV devices through the production and dissemination of validated methods, reference measurements, inter-laboratory comparisons and training.

The lab’s measurement capability covers cells of a few mm2 up to modules of several m2. Prices for photovoltaic devices are commonly quoted per Wp (Watt peak), i.e. the electrical performance under standard test conditions. To have legal value, these measurements need to demonstrate an unbroken traceability chain to international primary standards. ESTI has been at the forefront of developing calibrated measurement methods for over 20 years, supporting EU policy to promote renewable energy technologies in fair and transparent market conditions.

Underlining the importance of the new facilities to the European effort to retain a leading position in renewable energy, European Research and Innovation Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn said: "Renewable energy technologies are key to growth, jobs and better quality of life in Europe. In the global race for clean and competitive energy, photovoltaics in particular have huge potential to increase efficiency and reduce costs. A strong and vibrant European research infrastructure is essential to this, with the support of reference laboratories such as the JRC's European Solar Test Installation".

ESTI is fully accredited under ISO 17025 to calibrate PV devices. The laboratory has experience with a large variety of PV technologies: mono- and multi-crystalline silicon, thin film (amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, copper indium-(gallium)-di selenide) and multi-junction concentrator systems. ESTI's experimental resources and capabilities include lifetime testing of PV modules. The lifetime of a photovoltaic module is one of three key factors determining the generation costs of solar electricity. Although long-term performance data (>20 years) is now available for crystalline silicon modules, there is a lack of understanding of the physical mechanisms which may degrade performance. The development of reliable methodologies in this area for both existing and advanced PV technologies is therefore of high potential interest to PV module manufacturers, standards organisations, installation companies, electric utilities, and investment companies. The ESTI approach includes indoor accelerated aging of modules through damp heat testing of a series of thin-film based module technologies, and the installation and long-term monitoring of small PV systems (<1kWp).

One of the new facilities (the Apollo large-area steady-state simulator) opens the door to new measurements on advanced products as it provides full sunlight conditions over a 2m x 2m test area for up to 8 hours, and is the first of its kind installed in Europe. Improved methods to determine long-term performance (more than 20 years) are also a priority, as this makes it possible to calculate the cost of solar electricity after investment costs have been recovered.

ESTI's research is fed into European and international standards, supporting a transparent market and maximising the benefits of innovation. ESTI pioneered tests on the reliability of early PV products in the 1980s, when the European Commission financed the first pilot phase of terrestrial PV systems, and helped to provide the basis for international standards, supporting a market worth EUR 20-25 billion in Europe last year. The enormous potential of photovoltaic solar energy conversion technologies remains largely unexplored, while solar electric generation has the highest power density among renewable energies. These factors underline the importance of continuing research on PV, and in the medium term ESTI's strategy targets very high efficiency multi-junction cells, luminescent concentrators and organic PV systems.

PV research at the JRC's Ispra site started in the 1970s as part of the then department of physics. In 1977 the solar testing lab was formally opened and ESTI's activities began. The facility is part of the Renewable Energy Unit of the Institute for Energy and Transport. ESTI’s work supports the EU’s renewable energy goals and the implementation of the SET-Plan. 

For more information:

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/jrc/index.cfm?id=1410&obj_id=4560&dt_code=EVN

Key ESTI milestones