Abstract
The EC-funded PERFORMANCE integrated project begun in January 2006 includes a sub-project dedicated to improving the comparability of thin-film PV module performance measurements among European test laboratories and to filling existing gaps of knowledge for defining specific measurement procedures. The need for such improvement is underlined by the results of international round-robin tests with PV modules in the past years that revealed significant discrepancies in measurements on thin-film and multi-junction devices. A comprehensive test programme was conducted with different types of thin-film PV modules reflecting the current state of the art of commercially available thin-film technologies. Module types covering the following technologies were selected for the round-robin test: a-Si (single, tandem, triple), a-Si/ µc-Si (hybrid), CI(G)S and CdTe. Due to possible variations in electrical performance due to temperature conditions or dark storage (transport, packaging) a test procedure was defined that included a short-term pre-conditioning procedure to be performed prior to the output power characterisations in individual test laboratories. Evaluation of reported data revealed poor comparability of results and in particular a high spread for PMAX values in the range of 6%. Besides uncertainties caused by current mismatches of layers for multi- junction devices and uncertainties related to the reference devices, pre-conditioning must be regarded as another important source of uncertainty. We found that measurement discrepancies could be partly explained by the failure of some test labs to comply with the defined pre-conditioning procedure
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