Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) or an affiliated …€¦ · Significant ROI potential in this scenario Value of additional energy yield from Durable PV module vs the

®™ Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) or an affiliated company of Dow

®™Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) or an affiliated company of Dow

Module lifetime and failures

IEA: “Review of Failures of Photovoltaic Modules”, Task 13

external final report, IEA-PVPS, March 2014


DOE Sunshot Initiative: Pathways to grid price parity

2016 R

eal LC

OE

(U

.S. C

ents

/kW

h)

Daggett, CA w/ITC

Daggett, CA

Kansas City, MO

Seattle, WA (10¢)

7¢1.2¢

1¢

1.1¢

0.7¢

3¢

Daggett, CA w/ITCDaggett, CA

Kansas City, MO

Seattle, WA (10¢)

2016 Benchmark Lower SustainableModule Price:

$0.65 to $0.30/W

Lower Balance of System Hardware and Soft Costs

$0.85 to $0.55/W

Improve Lifetime:30 to 50 years

and Lower Degradation Rate:

0.75% to 0.2% /year

Lower O&M:$14 to $4/kW-yr

SunShot 2030 Goal

Source: SunShot 2030 Waterfalls


Durability is a Necessity

Source: SunShot 2030 Fact Sheet

With a system lifetime of 20 years

and a degradation rate of

1%/year, even a free module

would need to have an efficiency

of at least 27% in order to reach

the SunShot goal.

$0.00

$0.10

$0.20

$0.30

$0.40

$0.50

$0.60

10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Module

Price (

$/W

dc)

Total-Area Module Efficiency

0.2%/yr degradation, 30 yr life



All curves represent

3¢/kWh LCOE at a location

with average U.S. climate 6% WACC

2030 Example Scenario

1%/yr degradation, 20 yr life

In other words: module durability is not a nice-to-have, it is necessary.


How to financially evaluate durability

LCOE =Total costs over lifetime

Total energy over lifetime

How much additional energy must durable materials yield in order to justify their cost?

LCOE =

N

n=1

EOn

(1 + d)n∑

PC – CBI – PVPBI ETRN

n=1

OMn

(1 + d)n+ ∑*

N

n=1

LPn

(1 + d)n- ∑N

n=1

LPn

(1 + d)n+ ∑


Let’s go shopping for PV modules…

300 W PV Module

$100300 W PV Module with “durable materials”

$105


How to model PV performance scenarios

What reduction in LCOE can be accomplished by…

Increased lifetime? Reduced degradation? Both?

Years Years Years


Durability value calculation

Lifetime N

n=1EOn

(1 + d)n∑

Total costs over lifetime

Energy produced in year n

Future discount rate

Model assumptions (borrowed from DOE SunShot):• Default module: 25 year lifetime, 0.75%

annual degradation rate• Discount rate: 9.5%• Sun-hours per year: 1860 (sunny climate)

Additional assumption:• Cost of performance improvement: 0.016

$/W


Significant ROI potential in this scenario

Value of additional energy yield from

Durable PV module vs the added cost of

such a module.

This chart is calculated at fixed marginal

durability cost (0.016 $/W); for the point

marked with the star, we will investigate as

a function of cost.

800%

1200%

400%

1600%

25 30 35 40 45 500.75%

0.65%

0.55%

0.45%

0.35%

0.25%

Module lifetime

De

gra

da

tio

n r

ate

0%

200%

400%

600%

800%

1000%

1200%

1400%

1600%


Significant ROI potential in this scenario

• Investment $ could be used

to buy additional

conventional modules

• ROI of durable modules vs.

spending the same amount

on additional conventional

Degradation rate Lifetime

Conventional 0.75%/yr 25 yr

Durable 0.5%/yr 30 yr

0%

400%

800%

1200%

1600%

2000%

0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04

RO

I

Marginal cost of durability, $/W

Investment in durable modules

Investment in additional conventional modules









Many mechanisms of power loss

are affected by the choice of

encapsulant material


EVA degradation yields corrosive byproducts

+ UV, heat, moistureAcetic acid

Ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer

Polyolefin


Encapsulant durability: Key properties

Key Properties

Electric resistivity

Water vapor transmission rate

Acetic acid formation

Problems with EVA

Low resistivity leads to PID and

other electrochemical corrosion

Moisture ingress can lead to

corrosion

Acid leads to corrosion

Benefits of POE

POE has up to 1000x higher

resistivity, completely prevents PID

POE has 10x lower MVTR

POE does not form corrosive

byproducts


POEs consistently outperform EVA in accelerated stress testing

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Intial After PID

Po

we

r o

utp

ut

POE EVA

192 h-1000 V85% RH

85 °C

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000

Po

we

r o

utp

ut

Hours of 85ºC/85% RH exposure

POE

EVA


Polyolefin durability is key in many applications

Simple hydrocarbon chemistry and flexible formulation allow for decades of

performance in variety of applications


References in which POE outperforms EVA

• Bae, S.; Oh, W.; Lee, K. D.; Kim, S.; Kim, H.; Park, N.; Chan, S. I.; Park, S.; Kang, Y.; Lee, H. S. Energy Science & Engineering 2017, 5, 30.

• Barbato, M.; Meneghini, M.; Cester, A.; Barbato, A.; Meneghesso, G.; Tavernaro, G.; Rossetto, M. In Reliability Physics Symposium (IRPS), 2016 IEEE International; IEEE: 2016, p PV.

• Berghold, J.; Koch, S.; Frohmann, B.; Hacke, P.; Grunow, P. In Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC), 2014 IEEE 40th; IEEE: 2014, p 1987.

• Cattaneo, G.; Faes, A.; Li, H.-Y.; Galliano, F.; Gragert, M.; Yao, Y.; Grischke, R.; Söderström, T.; Despeisse, M.; Ballif, C. Photovoltaics International 2015, 3, 1.

• Cattaneo, G.; Galliano, F.; Chapuis, V.; Li, H.-Y.; Schlumpf, C.; Faes, A.; Söderström, T.; Yao, Y.; Grischke, R.; Gragert, M.

• Halm, A.; Schneider, A.; Mihailetchi, V.; Libal, J.; Aulehla, S.; Galbiati, G.; Roescu, R.; Comparotto, C.; Kopecek, R.; Peter, K. In Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2013 IEEE 39th; IEEE: 2013, p 2368.

• Kapur, J.; Norwood, J. L.; Cwalina, C. D. In Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), 2013 IEEE 39th; IEEE: 2013, p 3020.

• Kempe, M. Photovoltaic Solar Energy: From Fundamentals to Applications 2017, 478.

• Kempe, M. D.; Miller, D. C.; Wohlgemuth, J. H.; Kurtz, S. R.; Moseley, J. M.; Nobles, D. L.; Stika, K. M.; Brun, Y.; Samuels, S. L.; Shah, Q. A. Energy Science & Engineering 2016, 4, 40.

• López-Escalante, M.; Caballero, L. J.; Martín, F.; Gabás, M.; Cuevas, A.; Ramos-Barrado, J. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells 2016, 144, 691.

• Luo, W.; Khoo, Y. S.; Hacke, P.; Naumann, V.; Lausch, D.; Harvey, S. P.; Singh, J. P.; Chai, J.; Wang, Y.; Aberle, A. G. Energy & Environmental Science 2017, 10, 43.

• Masuda, A.; Hara, Y.; Jonai, S. Japanese Journal of Applied Physics 2016, 55, 02BF10.

• Tanaka, R.; Zenkoh, H. In Photovoltaic Module Rel. Workshop. 2015.


Module manufacturers express confidence in durability through their warranties.

How do warranties reflect value of durable materials?

Typical warranty for modules made with

conventional materials: 0.70%/yrAverage warrantied degradation rate

among module manufacturers who

disclose POE encapsulant:0.33%/yr


Durability: A key part of maximizing your solar investment

• Module durability is a necessity

o LCOE goals cannot be reached without it

• Investments in durability offer a significant ROI

o Model your own durability-based LCOE scenario

• Polyolefin materials consistently outperform EVA in durability-related testing


• World’s largest polyolefin elastomers producer, with

broadest portfolio in the industry

• Only producer with world-scale trains on three continents,

new Asia plants start-up in 2016

• Unparalleled manufacturing, application development and

market reach around the global

• Solution provider for Photovoltaic module encapsulation

• Since entering the global PV industry in 2012, Dow has

grown to become the supplier of choice for POEs in PV

encapsulant film.

ENGAGE™ PV Polyolefin Elastomers

8GW

Documents

Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) or an affiliated …€¦ · Significant ROI potential in this scenario Value of additional energy yield from Durable PV module vs the