Weather monitoring station consisting of:

• Secondary standard pyranometer for monitoring global horizontal solar irradiance (GHI)
• Anemometer for measuring wind speed
• Hygro-Thermometer for monitoring humidity and ambient temperature.

Outdoor Module IV Characterization System consisting of:

• Two I-V tracers with integrated MPP tracking, for monitoring the current-voltage (I-V) characteristic and performance of two PV panels under outdoor conditions
• In-plane calibrated reference cell and secondary standard pyranometer for monitoring the in-plane spectral and global solar irradiance
• Backside module temperature sensors.

Long-Term Module Outdoor Performance Monitoring System consisting of:

• Four microinverters for MPP tracking up to four individual PV panels
• In-plane calibrated reference cell for monitoring in plan spectral irradiance
• PT1000 backside module temperature sensors
• High sampling rate data acquisition system for monitoring the module AC and DC production and ambient operating conditions.

Grid Connected Array Performance and Failure  Monitoring System consisting of:

• PV array consisting of 12 half-modules (6 full modules) with easy panel access for removing and replacing PV modules
• Single phase inverter
• In-plane calibrated reference cell for monitoring in plan spectral irradiance
• Module level voltage and temperature measurement (SunSniffer) integrated into the panel junction box
• High sampling rate data acquisition system for monitoring the inverter AC and DC production and ambient operating conditions.

Outdoor IR Thermography PV Array Monitoring System that can operate unattended for recording PV array thermograms of healthy and damaged PV modules under variable ambient operating conditions.

All-Sky Camera for acquiring full hemispheric pictures of the sky under light conditions used in cloud cover and solar irradiance variability research.

In this lab we offer the following tests and services:

• Outdoor performance assessment of PV panels, using our high accuracy MPP and I-V curve monitoring setup, coupled with high accuracy weather station data
• High accuracy and – sampling rate environmental monitoring data (solar global irradiance, ambient temperature, wind speed, humidity)
• Correlation of cloud movement with high sampling rate solar irradiance and power production measurements
• Performance assessment for micro-inverters and power optimizers
• Outdoor thermal characterization of PV panels.