A Faster, Cheaper Way To Give Solar Panels a Clean Bill of Health (Text Version)

This is the text version of the video A Faster, Cheaper Way To Give Solar Panels a Clean Bill of Health.

[Electronic dance music plays. A timelapse video shows a nighttime scene of people walking around a row of solar panels, capped by a structure that is flashing red light on the panels.]

[Narrator speaks.]

>>Narrator: Is this a solar energy dance party?

It is time for these solar panels to shine, but not on the dance floor.

Rather, NREL researchers are using a clever device to search for damage in solar panels.

[A woman appears on screen. Caption: Nicole Luna, University of Colorado Boulder Graduate Student]

>>Nicole: PLatypus is a device that takes pictures of solar panels and lets you see invisible damage.

[A man appears on screen. Caption: Tim Silverman, NREL, Senior Scientist]

>>Tim: There's an effect called photoluminescence where when we shine light on a solar cell a different wavelength of light comes back, and the intensity of the light that comes back depends on the local quality of the solar cell.

[Visuals show a solar panel glowing in black and white images.]

The sun is a lot brighter than the signal that we're looking for, so it's easier to run the machine at night than it is to filter out the sunlight.

>>Narrator: It's all funded by the DuraMAT Consortium — a U.S. Department of Energy effort to make solar panels more reliable.

[The DuraMAT and U.S. Department of Energy logos appear.]

[A woman appears on screen. Caption: Teresa Barnes, NREL, DuraMAT Director]

>>Teresa: DuraMAT is a multi-lab research consortium where we focus on photovoltaic, or PV, solar module reliability. We do this to help us buy better quality modules and deploy better quality modules.

>>Tim: If you have a system that's been hit by a hailstorm, that hail might have broken some cells, and PLatypus is a good way to find out.

The cells inside of a PV module can crack without the glass breaking, and that can affect their power output, sometimes years later. PLatypus can detect them as soon as they form.

[A video showing PV cells flexing in black and white, showing cracks within the cell.]

Other methods for detecting those cracks usually require you to disconnect modules and plug them into a power supply and often rely on more expensive equipment, so this is a faster and cheaper way to detect the cracks.

>>Teresa: So if you can do something where you never have to deal with the electrical system, you're also protecting that system from one connect and disconnect operation. But it's also a safety and a speed issue; you have to schedule downtime, you have to plan ahead. So with this you don't have to unplug the modules.

>>Narrator: PLatypus is just a proof-of-concept prototype for now, but it demonstrates the benefits of quick and easy measurements.

>>Nicole: The main goal of the design was to keep the device really lightweight. And this design let us take the device out into the field and put it on the solar panels. And it's simple enough to be pretty cost effective for future development.

[A video shows the PLatypus prototype gliding across solar panels on skateboard wheels.]

>>Tim: My hope is that people use this tool to produce useful images of powerplants and to rule out major problems, to give powerplants a clean bill of health.

What was my favorite part of the process? Making things. Breaking things. Taking cool pictures.

[The NREL logo appears. Text says: Learn more at https://www.nrel.gov/pv/reliability-engineering.html.]