Yet nearly 700 million people around the world don't have any, and many more don't even have access to things like healthcare facilities with a stable electricity supply to ensure life-saving treatments. Contact online >>
Yet nearly 700 million people around the world don''t have any, and many more don''t even have access to things like healthcare facilities with a stable electricity supply to ensure life-saving treatments.
What is ironic is that there is no shortage of energy available to us. Every day, the sun gives us more than 200000 times the amount of energy that the world is currently capable of generating in electricity. What''s more, more than 80% of the global population with no access to electricity lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that is where sunshine is perhaps the most abundant of anywhere in the world.
Solar PV is one of the cheapest ways of producing new electricity in most countries, and rising retail electricity prices and policy support for renewable energies are fueling its growth. In 2022 solar PV generation showed an annual increase of 26%, the largest growth of all renewable energies, and it is expected to grow further to exceed that of coal by 2027.
All this is good news, especially given that much more needs to be done to meet climate targets, reduce carbon emissions and achieve electricity access for all. The IEA claims that electricity generation needs to be supplying almost half of total energy consumption by 2040 to reach net-zero targets by 2050. Given that electricity makes up just 20% of global energy consumption today, solar PV represent the opportunity of the century.
According to the IEA''s World Energy Outlook 2022, "investments in clean electricity and electrification, along with expanded and modernized grids, offer clear and cost‐effective opportunities to cut emissions more rapidly while bringing electricity costs down from their current highs". Electricity currently accounts for about 20% of the world''s total final consumption of energy, yet in their Net Zero Emissions Scenario, low‐emissions sources of electricity, including solar, will reach three‐quarters of total generation by 2030.
Roger Taylor is an expert in the PV industry and a convenor to taskforces as well as lead assessor for IECRE, the IEC System for Certification to Standards Relating to Equipment for Use in Renewable Energy Applications. The big plus of a PV plant, he pointed out, is its low operating costs.
"Sunlight is free," he added, "so once it is set up it costs little to run. In fact, around 80% of total lifetime costs of a plant are in the year of build. Yet a well-built plant produces electricity for 30 or 40 years. Which is why it''s important to invest wisely in quality products and design and construction processes from the start."
The overall safety and reliability of the PV plant, explained Taylor, is determined not only by the components but by a complex interaction of all of the stages of a PV plant''s development, design, engineering, construction operation and maintenance. This includes cyber security.
"The vast majority of PV power plants are managed remotely, and many of these plants have little or insufficient cyber security measures in place, so it is essential they invest more in these areas."
Many IEC International Standards are a key enabler for solar PV installations as they set globally agreed requirements to meet the necessary levels of quality, safety and performance. When combined with conformity assessment (CA) such as certification, inspection and testing, they can also accelerate market acceptance and instill confidence in everyone in the supply chain, right through to the end consumer.
The IEC develops around 200 standards for PV components such as modules, inverters, trackers, connectors and DC cables. It also has standards for PV system design and for quality management systems for the construction of a PV power plant and its inspection and testing.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), as the growth in the PV market increases, so too will the volume of waste in landfills when solar panels reach their end of life. But this can be dramatically reduced, not only through recycling but through avoiding early replacements of panels because their quality is lower than it could be.
Standards for "type" such as IEC61215 and IEC61730 for PV modules and IEC62109 and IEC61683 for PV inverters are often the only standards certified to, said industry expert and Convenor of the PV sector working group at IECRE Thomas C. Sauer. This is because they are considered the minimum requirement for market participation.
"If a manufacturer of solar PV components only certifies to type standards, not all elements of safety and quality may be assessed. This could then lead to problems such as we have seen recently where an increasing number of modules with cracked glass are showing up in the field without major stress impact such as hail or storms. In addition, more often than desirable, panels are retired earlier than they could be, meaning a lower return on investment in the long run, and even more importantly, a significantly reduced environmental payback", Sauer commented.
IECEE PV certificates demonstrate that all the elements and components are designed, manufactured and tested according to IEC International Standards, which means they will comply with quality and safety requirements worldwide. They provide manufacturers of PV installations with a simple and reliable way of identifying the components that will allow them to build high quality PV products and systems.
Wolfram Zeitz, Executive Secretary for IEC CA Systems IECRE and IECEE said it is important to remember that while individual components should be certified, the entire plant also needs to be assessed, to ensure safety of the components working together so that all bases are covered.
"Solar PV installations are seen as critical infrastructure because the electricity they generate is important to the functioning of the town or city it is serving," he stressed. "It is therefore critical that conformity assessment is done on both the components and the entire plant to ensure the standards are correctly implemented and that the level of quality and safety is attained throughout the entire value chain."
Recognizing that many countries lack the infrastructure or resources to undertake comprehensive quality controls, the IECEE PV certification programme offers a much more accessible solution as it offers the mutual recognition of conformity assessment certificates and associated test reports.
The Kenyan Bureau of Standards (KEBS) operates a national certification approval scheme which recognizes IECEE test reports and certificates for electrical and electronic components, equipment and products, including those for PV installations.
Irene Njine, the Assistant Manager-Quality Assurance at KEBS, explains, "We have reaped several benefits from becoming a recognizing body. One of them is that when products have already been tested by IECEE-recognized labs, there is no need for KEBS to do further testing. The phrase one standard, one test, one certificate accepted everywhere really applies here in Kenya. It simplifies the clearance process for imported goods and saves time to market."
About Iec standards for solar inverters
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