‘Test the quality, operation, and efficiency of your panels’
More and more companies believe in the power of the sun and are investing in solar panels. This form of generating energy contributes to sustainable operations, reduces costs, helps your company’s sustainability image, and also has tax benefits. This makes it a worth-while investment in the long term. When purchasing the solar panels, you’ll spend a lot of money, yet solar panels are fragile. The quality control for many products still provides insufficient quality assurance. Damage due to improper transport and storage, bad batches, manufacturing errors, installation damage, or storm damage are occurring more and more frequently. Many defects that can impact a solar panel’s lifespan – and also determine the quality of your solar power system – are not visible to the naked eye. It is therefore a good idea to get certainty about the quality, operation, and efficiency of the solar panels. SolarTester offers you this certainty with quick, reliable, independent mobile check of your solar panels.
SolarTester uses sample testing to check the quality of solar panels for you at any desired location. Within a day you will know the quality (and the return of investment) of your panels, now and in the future!
The SolarTester is a mobile lab in which we can conduct different tests. It is equipped with a LED sunlight simulator for a Flash test/output measurement, a high-resolution Electroluminescence to find – among other potential issues –micro-cracks, and a thermographic camera for finding so-called Hot Spots. The sample size and the quality acceptance levels are determined by us based on the scientific standards ISO 2859-1 en AQL.
With our tester we can test at least 150 solar panels in one working day. In addition to the high-quality EL images, the power measurement is one of the most accurate measurements possible at the moment. Thanks to our IEC 60904-9 ED3 compliant A + A + A + flasher, we have a measurement accuracy of +/- 98% thanks to the use of calibration modules.
More and more companies and investors are seeing the benefits of solar energy. However, too little is known about the risks of handling and transport and the effect on returns. The long journey that solar panels take before they are installed is full of bumps and bumps. Micro-cracks that arise during production, during transport and or through handling during installation can lead to loss of efficiency of the panels. These are easy to detect in the test lab. In contrast to the manufacturers, we also assess the micro cracks for the potential negative impact on the long-term output. This means we have higher quality requirements, but our clients have more certainty about the expected yield over 25 years. A small crack on day one can grow into a hot spot through the annual thermal cycles, with all possible consequences for the output of the panel.
In addition, SolarTester likes to use its test results for scientific research in order to increase the knowledge in the market about the vulnerability of the panels. SolarTester also builds up a valuable database with the test results. This allows us to get a better grip on the quality of the solar panels.