Design of Experimental Test Setup for Large-scale Reliability Evaluation of Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE)

Module level power electronics (MLPE), such as microinverters and DC power optimizers, are power electronic devices integrated or attached with PV modules so that there is one power-conditioning unit per module. This distributed architecture offers significant system benefits, including reduced component electrical stress, partial shading gains, and reduced effect of module failure on array performance. While the majority of MLPE studies have focused on performance, there is a distinct lack of large-scale, time-to-failure reliability studies to determine approximate field-use lifetime. This paper discusses a test setup for the long-term, large-scale, high temperature operating life testing MLPE devices to determine acceleration factor and time-to-failure.