Detection and characterisation of delamination in PV modules by active infrared thermography

Abstract

The paper presents a fast and efficient method for the detection and characterisation of delamination in photovoltaic (PV) modules by using active infrared thermography approach. A discrete part of PV module was irradiated by step heating and its thermal image sequence was used to detect and analyse delamination. Different types of heating source for thermal excitation for this application have been studied. An electro-thermal model was developed to simulate the active thermography approach for the characterisation of delamination in PV module by equivalent resistance–capacitance (RC) network using a circuit simulator. This simulation approach was used to estimate the extent of delamination in the module and to determine the optimum parameters for the characterisation of delamination. Different applications based on front and backsides of heating the module were also proposed in this paper. The proposed method has the potential to be employed for the quality check of PV modules during inline production as well as for the predictive maintenance of outdoor PV plants.

Keywords:

• infrared thermography
• non-destructive testing
• photovoltaic module
• delamination
• electro-thermal modelling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by a joint India–UK initiative in solar energy through a joint project ‘Stability and Performance of Photovoltaics (STAPP)’ funded by Department of Science and Technology (DST) in India and Research Councils UK (RCUK) Energy Programme in UK [grant number EP/H040331/1].