This topic had already drifted through the press some years ago and prompted me at that time, in 2010, to write this blog article. Back then, the topic could still be dismissed as “fake news” due to a lack hitherto of properly documented cases in which photovoltaic facilities could be uniquely identified as fire sources. […]
Read articleFinding shorted bypass diodes in photovoltaic systems
The search for defective bypass diodes has been a frequently discussed blog topic here. Just when I thought I had already described typical thermograms and electro-luminescence recordings in detail, fellow drone pilot Thomas Reusch notified me of a case which we then jointly pondered. A small experiment in the garden behind our office made it possible to […]
Read articleHow short-circuiting a solar array can help with faultfinding
I have already described a number of methods here in the blog that you can use to discover and pinpoint almost any fault that can occur in a photovoltaic system – or so I thought. But then I came across a “tough cookie”, where it took several attempts to locate the cause of the reduced […]
Read articleLocating broken wires in solar systems
Here in our blog, we have already described many ways of speeding up fault location in photovoltaic systems. But there is one rather mundane fault that we haven’t yet discussed: a break in the wiring on the DC side of a module string. This kind of fault is relatively easy to find. If the string […]
Read articlepvTraining
Systematic fault-finding of photovoltaic systems has been the focus of our work for some time. Having given seminars on this subject for several years at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sonnenenergie (DGS), we are now pleased to offer two seminars nearer to home at the Sonnenwerk in Bischofsheim near Rüsselsheim. Companies can also book a seminar exclusively for […]
Read articleRemember… it could always be worse – a love letter to (nearly) all inverter manufacturers
When I was writing this article, I had to keep reining in my annoyance, because I didn’t want anyone working for an inverter manufacturer to stop reading before they had even finished the introduction. Today, I’d like to talk about the DC connector compartments on solar inverters and ask the manufacturers: what on earth were […]
Read articleArcing and other causes of fires in photovoltaic systems
One type of fault that we have encountered quite often recently is that of open cell connectors on single solar modules in a module string. I have already described this issue in the article on the causes of reduced open-circuit voltage in solar generators, but I have now decided to revisit the topic in more […]
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