Ingeteam Inverters’ Distinctive Functionality Allows for Successful Electroluminescence Inspection at the Red-Tailed Hawk Solar Farm in Texas

The first inverter-fed electroluminescence (EL) inspection of photovoltaic panels on U.S. soil has been successfully carried out, thanks to the joint efforts of Acciona Energía, Ingeteam, and Quantified Energy (QE). Ingeteam provided on-site support using their INGECON SUN 3Power UL C Series inverters (3,222 kVA) at Acciona Energía’s Red-Tailed Hawk Solar Farm in El Campo, TX. This site is one of the company's largest photovoltaic assets worldwide, with an installed capacity of 458 MWp and the ability to generate up to 742 GWh of clean energy per year. A total of 18,125 modules from a pre-selected section were inspected using the electroluminescence capabilities of three of Ingeteam’s inverters, requiring just 2 hours of inspection time per inverter. QE provided a specialized camera, drone, pilot training and the software needed to perform the inspection (autonomous flight mapping) and analysis of the results.

EL is a phenomenon in which a material emits light when an electrical current is applied to it. An EL inspection involves injecting a current into the panels so that the photovoltaic cells emit infrared light, which is captured by a camera and subsequently analysed. In this way, micro-cracks and hidden defects at the cellular level are identified, allowing asset owners to evaluate the quality of their solar panels on a highly granular level to streamline warranty and insurance claims. This process is used in laboratories and solar panel factories to determine the health of modules. Ingeteam developed its EL functionality to facilitate these inspections in large utility scale farms.

Electroluminescence functionality is one of many ways that Ingeteam has leveraged its investment in R&D to design inverters with innovative technologies and set itself apart from other OEMs in the PV sector. By equipping inverters with this feature, Ingeteam helps customers to reduce the necessary time for O&M inspections, with all strings being energized at the same time instead of string-to-string polarization. It also means greater efficiency as only inverter consumption is necessary versus the need for additional power supplies (DC and AC). Furthermore, it offers a more reliable and safer option because the operator does not have to manipulate string box cables.

The EL inspection process at the Red-Tailed Hawk Solar Farm allowed Acciona Energía to evaluate the health of the solar panels at this site in a precise, efficient, and safe manner, and the findings have provided illuminating information that will help them to optimize site performance. While this is the first inspection conducted in the United States, Ingeteam has carried out this type of electroluminescence testing worldwide, reducing the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) of the analysed assets. This technique has already been used to optimize the performance and reliability of photovoltaic farms in countries such as Spain, Chile, Panama and Australia. Ingeteam inverter-enabled field inspections have achieved a throughput of up to 40,000 modules per night utilizing QE’s technology in some of these projects.

To learn more about EL functionality in Ingeteam’s inverters, please visit: https://www.ingeteam.com/en/electroluminescence-functionality-ingeteam-inverters-helps-reduce-lcoe-and-optimize-performance

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