Do the up-front cost savings associated with PV module value engineering efforts come at the expense of reduced resilience to field conditions of use? To find out, we interviewed Ralf Schulze, an expert in quality assurance, failure mode and effects analysis, system diagnostics, and corrective and preventative maintenance who manages field forensic services for RETC.

Is a decline in the compressive strength of solar module glass partly to blame for some of the unique field failure modes associated with new ultra-large-format PV module designs? In order to learn more about glass manufacturing and reliability science, we interviewed Dr. James Webb of Corning for RETC's sixth annual PV Module Index Report.

For the 2024 PV Module Index Report, RETC sought to better understand the unique field failure modes associated with ultra-large-format PV module designs. Here, we present our interview with an expert in module durability—NREL's Theresa Barnes. Dr. Barnes is the principal investigator and director of NREL's DuraMAT Consortium for module materials research.

The Lone Star State not only leads the country in terms of wind power capacity, but also is poised to overtake California as the top solar market. Whether the United States does its part to avert a global climate crisis could very well hinge on the solar industry’s ability to weather Texas hailstorms.

Emboldened by the promise of high module performance at low production costs, companies developing perovskite-based solar cells hope to deploy something new under the sun. In this technical primer, we review the disruptive market potential and possible pitfalls of perovskite-based PV modules.