Jenya Meydbray

PVEL · Solar

The virtual bifiPV Workshop was held in July 2020 to provide the solar industry with a forum for sharing and discussing research into bifacial PV technology. This report outlines major insights from the workshop to give the reader an overview of the latest developments in bifacial PV technology worldwide, from the lab to the field. Citations are dr...

Correlating the electrical performance of photovoltaic modules to the spatially resolved photoluminescence, electroluminescence, and dark lock-in thermography (DLIT) images is an important long-term goal for developing solar cell technology. These images offer highly sophisticated and detailed information about the spatial distribution and (if imag...

We apply ray tracing to compute the light-generated current I $_{\rm L}$ within each solar cell of a bifacial tracking module, and circuit modeling to quantify how the spatial variability in $I_{L}$ (i.e., current mismatch) reduces the module's output power P $_{\rm MP}$ . We find that 10 million rays are required to accurately map $I_{L}$ fo...

This work presents a novel analytical approximation of the effect of inter-row shading on large photovoltaic (PV) arrays. Computation time is reduced orders of magnitude relative to full numerical simulations, allowing this method to be used in annual production estimation software - for instance, it is currently implemented in the National Renewab...

As described in Part 1 of this two-part series, thermopile pyranometers and photovoltaic (PV) reference cells can both be used to measure irradiance; however, there are subtle differences between the data that are obtained. This two-part article explores some implications of uncertainty and subtleties of accurately measuring PV efficiency in the fi...

Solar power plant investors expect photovoltaic (PV) modules to safely and efficiently produce electricity for 25 years. International certification standards such as IEC are designed to evaluate modules for defects and design flaws that contribute to product safety or early lifetime performance issues. This certification testing is performed on a...

Site survey data for several residential installations are provided, showing the extent and frequency of shade throughout the year. This background information is used to design a representative shading test that is conducted on two side-by-side 8-kW photovoltaic (PV) installations. One system is equipped with a standard string inverter, while the...

Utility-scale PV: Even tiny changes in predicted output can have a big impact on a utility-scale power plant’s bottom line. As such, a small reduction in uncertainty can make a big difference. The best way to accurately determine PV efficiency is explored in this article, the first part of a two-part series, from PV Evolution Labs, which compares p...

As the photovoltaic industry has grown exponentially in the past decade, large photovoltaic (PV) fields have become more common. The investors for these projects calculate the expected return on investment based on expected electricity generation and adjust the interest rates and other financial terms according to the perceived risk. These calculat...

This document describes a repeatable test procedure that attempts to simulate shading situations, as would be experienced by typical residential rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems. This type of shading test is particularly useful to evaluate the impact of different power conversion setups, including microinverters, DC power optimizers and string inv...