Publications Details
Generic quality assurance/quality control guide for photovoltaic concentrator design, development and system installation
The US Department of Energy National Photovoltaics Program considers the photovoltaic (PV) concentrator technology as a viable entity, likely to penetrate the utility market in the foreseeable future. To achieve this, it has launched the National Photovoltaic Concentrator Initiative under the management of Sandia National Laboratories. The objective of this program is to encourage PV concentrator system design and manufacture, with a view to bringing the energy cost to $0.12/kWh in the next four years and to $0.06/kWh by the year 2000. To achieve these goals, the systems have to perform reliably for 20 to 30 years. This necessitates a stringent quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program in all phases of PV concentrator design, production, and installation. In order to assist the PV industry in this effort a project was initiated to provide a generic QA/QC guide, capable of being adapted by any PV concentrator industry to prepare its individual QA/QC plan. The draft plan of the guide was prepared and circulated to various government laboratories and industries involved in PV concentrator work. Their input is now being incorporated into a final document, which will serve as an industry standard. 1 ref., 1 fig.