Commercial viability of different photovoltaic technologies

Photovoltaic (PV) output is calculated in efficiency, which quantifies incident solar irradiation transformed into electricity on a PV module surface. Particularly, the performance is influenced by local environment, such as solar irradiance, temperature, light incident angle, soiling, etc., and own factors, such as solar cell types and efficiency and module layout design, configuration and size. However, because of the various types of stress developed during field operation, the performance of a PV module gradually deteriorates. To increase their commercial viability, it is critical to identify the causes of degradation and failure modes, and find appropriate PV technologies for each site. In this chapter, we discuss the reliability and various failure modes that have been recorded for various PV technologies over the last few years through field and laboratory test investigations.