New solar I-V curve educational poster from Solmetric
May 9th 2011, Sebastopol California
Solmetric has announced this free poster to help solar professionals and trainers develop their understanding of I-V curves. In addition to background information, the poster provides helpful tips on troubleshooting and measurement techniques.
Measuring and interpreting I-V curves is getting increased emphasis in the solar PV industry, as they enable array performance verification and troubleshooting. Measurements of DC current vs. DC voltage in a PV system offer important insight into the health of the system. The resulting I-V curve describes how the system is behaving under certain irradiance and temperature conditions. Deviation from ideal or predicted performance can help identify performance issues and ensure quality installations.
This Solmetric poster provides a visual representation of I-V curves and how they should look when healthy and when impaired. The characteristic impairment signatures are explained for shunt and series losses, as well as mismatch. The poster also highlights Solmetric's PV Analyzer product offering, a new tool that enables I-V curve measurements of modules or strings, and comparisons to built-in performance models. Any differences can offer insights into potential performance issues such as series resistance or mismatch. To specify the design, the user chooses the module and inverter type, the number of modules, and the array orientation into the PV Analyzer software.
The poster is available free in the US and Canada.