The solar PV blog

I have the IEC TC82 solar PV meeting all next week. We will be mostly working on four main documents: IEC62548 – Design Requirements for Photovoltaic (PV) Arrays This new IEC standard is nearly ready for final vote and has been the subject to a great deal of scrutiny around the world. While it will …

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Fairly understandably, I am getting a large number of enquires on the likely publication date for Edition 3 of the solar PV installation guide. The short answer is that I don’t know – but there is an MCS PV working group this Thursday that will hopefully provide the answer. The delay to the guide has …

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IEC 62446 Grid connected PV systems – minimum requirements for system documentation, commissioning tests and inspection I am working on Edition 2 of IEC 62446 today … does anyone out there have any suggestions for things we need to add, remove or edit? As well as correcting a few typos in the original, the general …

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Over the last couple of years I have been participating in an MCS working group that addresses roofing and mounting issues for solar PV and solar thermal systems. This work has led to the publication of MCS 012 – Product Certification Scheme Requirements: Pitched Roof Installation Kits – Issue 1.0. The document, which was published …

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The Supreme Court has today refused the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s judgement on the feed in tariff  This means that all systems installed between December 12, 2011 and March 3, 2012 will receive the original higher FIT rates for  25 years. More on this story can be …

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I have been one of the speakers at the Solar Power UK – Coping with the Cuts road-show that has been running over the last few weeks … talking partly about the forthcoming changes to the PV guide and partly about Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). EPCs are obviously very much in the mind of UK …

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DECC has published some FAQ’s on the Feed in tariff …  FIT FAQs This includes an answer to the question that many folk have asked over the last few days regarding the requirement to have a band D Energy Performance Cerificate (EPC) … “Can I install the solar PV system to get a band D …

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I have recently Just come across PV module that’s marketed as 235Wp +7% to +12% To me that’s a 251Wp module with 0-5% variation in output At first I was thinking – perhaps this is just marketing hype – but on reflection I am not so sure it isn’t more significant … The module rating …

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One thing is certain about the Feed in Tariff at the moment – there is currently a lot of uncertainty! FIT rates were not originally scheduled to be changed before 1st April 2012, yet at the end of October, in launching a consultation on the FIT scheme, the Government announced significant cuts to the FIT …

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The Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is used to assess the energy performance of dwellings and includes a section to estimate the annual performance of a solar PV system. PV installers should be very familiar with the PV – SAP calculation as it is the method currently proscribed under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS). A proposed …

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