What causes a PV module to break?

The glass cover of some PV modules may break or cells in the laminate may break due to vibrations and shocks. In the former case it is easy to attribute the glass breakage to the transportation or installation. This is clearly no PV module failure. However, the cause of cell breakage is much more difficult to decide.

Does PV module glass breakage cause defect interconnections?

This study shows a quite high rate of defect interconnections in the module and failures due to PV module glass breakage. The relative failure rate of j-box and cables (12%), burn marks on cells (10%), and encapsulant failure (9%) are comparable high. Fig. 3.2: Failure rates due to customer complaints in the first two years after delivery.

What causes a solar panel to fail?

They found that the most common causes of early failure are junction box failure, glass breakage, defective cell interconnect, loose frame, and delamination. A study by DeGraaff on PV modules that had been in the field for at least 8 years estimated that around 2% of PV modules failed after 11–12 years.

Why is my PV module cracking?

Typical reasons for the heavy mechanical loads are wrong packaging during transport, dropping of a PV module parallel to the ground, tilting over of a PV module or very heavy snow load. This crack pattern indicates that the crack has occurred after the lamination process.

What causes PV module degradation?

More often, material interactions with the encapsulant are a root cause for PV module degradation.

What causes a frameless PV module to fail in the field?

A relatively often seen failure in the field is glass breakage of frameless PV modules caused by the clamps. In Fig. 4.3.1 two examples from the field are shown. Glass/glass modules are more sensitive to glass breakage.