Correlating the Hot Spots and Power Degradation seen in crystalline silicon modules in All India Survey of PV Module Reliability 2018

This paper presents analysis of Infrared (IR) imaging performed on a total of 793 modules inspected during the All India Survey of PV Module Reliability 2018. It 18% of the inspected modules had Module ΔT (difference between maximum and modal temperature) of more than 4°C under MPPT condition which correlated to a significant increase in power degradation. Also, modules with hotspots show higher degradation than modules without hotspots in both Hot and Non-Hot climates. However, effect of hot cell (Module with Module AT > 4 °C) in hot zone was more significant. It was also seen that Module AT is significantly higher for modules above the age of 5 years. Comparison of the drone based IR imaging to ground based handheld IR imaging is also provided.