SOLEX

Photovoltaics (PVs) provide an attractive alternative to conventional fossil fuel based energy production. In order to get the maximum  power production of PVs faults must be detected and corrected early. SOLEX deals with one of the most important PV faults, potential induced degradation (PID). PID reduces the power generation, can cause permanent damage and decrease the lifetime of PVs. SOLEX has developed a proprietary low cost and low power patent pending sensor and software to analyse the data from that sensor that can detect PID, five times earlier than existing methods. It can detect PID when the power generation drops just by 1% whereas existing methods detect at 5% of power drop. This means that with existing methods the PVs are underperforming for a long time before the issue is detected. This translates to lost revenue and the possibility of permanent damage of the PV. Based on the current installed PV base, just a 1% of power production loss corresponds to over half a billion of euros lost annually.