International Workshop on PV System Monitoring and Performance Assessment

31st October 2008, Nice, France

More than 70 participants from the PV industry and the research community met together in order to discuss the intermediate results of the Performance project, in concrete the work carried out within the Sub project 3 (SP3) “Performance assessment and evaluation of PV systems”.
The rapid growth in photovoltaic installations over the last few years requires new approaches in the measurement and assessment of system performance, moving from simple determination of initial system losses to lifetime monitoring and fault detection.

In the context of the PERFORMANCE project, the European Guidelines for PV System Monitoring are being updated and extended to address a wide range of users and applications and to reflect best practice in the industry. During the workshop, the updated guidelines package was presented and the participants had the opportunity to input to the development. Furthermore, the participant will have the possibility to contribute during 2009, when some people will be able to use the draft version of the tool.

Other topics as Detecting and Diagnosing System Faults and Failure Mode effects Analysis for PV Systems and Performance assessment techniques were also discussed.

For any further information, please contact:

Prof. Nicola Pearsall, NPAC, Northumbria University: nicola.pearsall(at)northumbria.ac.uk
Mr. Daniel Fraile, EPIA: d.fraile(at)epia.org

Programme

09:30	Registration& Coffee
10:00	Monitoring PV Systems: developing the European Guidelines under PERFORMANCE
	Nicola Pearsall, Northumbria University
10:30	Introduction to the PV Monitoring Tool
	Bogdan Atanasiu, EC DG JRC
11:00	Discussion
11:20	Coffee break
11:40	Detecting and diagnosing system faults
	Nicola Pearsall, Northumbria University
12:00	Analysing array performance
	Steve Ransome, Independent Consultant
12:20	Developing a monitoring FMEA
	Nicola Pearsall, Northumbria University
12:40	Discussion
13:00	Lunch break
14:00	Structured plenary discussion of guidelines requirements:
	- User issues
	- Experience of fault behavior
	- Transition points for monitoring complexity
	- New approaches
16:00	Summary and next steps
	Nicola Pearsall, Northumbria University
16:30	Close of workshop