TESTING I CASE STUDY
However, in spite of this, in the interests of maintaining installation quality, Comet always aims to apply and meet the existing standards of the US NEC code and to perform to the best practices of the industry.
To help achieve this the company recently invested in a Seaward Solar PV150 solar installation test kit, along with a 200R irradiance meter, to enable it to carry out effective quality control and customer reassurance testing on its products and installations.
that we have any customers at all. At that rate and if we had net-metering, our payback on solar PV systems would be about 3 years.”
Comet customers therefore tend to focus on price and return on investment, with aesthetics often being low on the list of purchasing factors. However, buying bargain priced solar PV modules brings its own challenges; second hand or refurbished modules are often used, but, in some cases the life history of the modules or the original manufacturer is not always known.
Regional variation
Another issue is the lack of formal installation standards or regulations. For example, operating in a Caribbean jurisdiction means that Comet is not specifically required to perform the same tests that a UK or US based installation company would be faced with.
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www.solar-uk.net I Issue III 2013
The Seaward Solar PV150 is a dedicated multi-function PV electrical tester designed specifically for solar panel system installation. It performs open circuit voltage measurements (Voc), short circuit current measurements (Isc), earth continuity, insulation resistance, operating current (via AC/DC current clamp).
With the push of a single button the new combination tester carries out the required sequence of electrical tests in a safe and controlled manner, avoiding the risk of contact with exposed live DC conductors. Results can be recorded and stored in the tester for subsequent USB downloading to a PC. Chris Mason, explained: “In order to ensure the quality of the products we sell to our customers, we feel it is important to carry out testing thoroughly and effectively.
“We owned standard test instruments and DC clamp meters but found that these manual methods were prone to error and were not particularly practical to use in the field. There is also no efficient way to record the results. We therefore decided to
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