Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office December 8, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Department of Energy (DOE) today gives notice of a Request for Information (RFI) to invite comment on approaches to address the need for consistently-collected reliability data of fielded photovoltaic systems, data analysis to deduce methods for assessing reliability and to improve accelerated aging tests to create predictive models, improvement in existing tests, more information on best practices for reliability and accelerated aging tests, and assessing the nature and frequency of safety-related issues (arcing, building integration aspects, and ground faults) and their relationship with long-term performance. It is clear that the foundation to address these needs is a database consisting of photovoltaic system and component reliability, as well as performance data, which are collected in a consistent manner. In addition to the database, it is necessary for DOE to collaborate with the national laboratories and others to evaluate the data, develop new or modified tests, assess safety, evaluate system and component interactions, and develop predictive models. DOE is issuing this RFI for information and feedback from the PV community stakeholders. These include, but are not limited to, system operators and integrators, utilities, project planners, financial planners, manufacturers, third-party data-aggregation companies, universities, testing facilities, and other interested parties. See the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document, which provides further detail and comments requested.