Determining how many years a solar panel will last can take, well, years. Intended to function for 25 years or more, solar panels must be made to withstand the elements. In some cases, panels continue working well after their planned operational lifetime. Nowhere is this more evident than on the sunny hillside in Golden, Colorado, where the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) operates the Outdoor Test Facility (OTF).
The OTF continues to run tests on photovoltaic (PV) panels made by companies still very much interested in the outcome. The OTF is equipped to perform accelerated testing on PV panels, which discovers problems in their design or in the materials used, said Dirk Jordan, a physicist who is a senior engineer at NREL. However, it is difficult to make long-term performance and degradation predictions for different environments with accelerated testing only. Multi-year outdoor testing is used to complement and validate accelerated testing. That is critical feedbac
First Solar’s Photovoltaic Technology Completes 25 Years of Testing at NREL
Dec. 14, 2020
First Solar s 0.6 kilowatt cadmium telluride PV solar test array has been tested at NREL s Outdoor Test Facility for 25 years.
Photo by Dennis Schroeder, NREL
Determining how many years a solar panel will last can take, well, years. Intended to function for 25 years or more, solar panels must be made to withstand the elements. In some cases, panels continue working well after their planned operational lifetime. Nowhere is this more evident than on the sunny hillside in Golden, Colorado, where the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) operates the Outdoor Test Facility (OTF).