JUNE 16-21, 2013 • TAMPA, FLORIDA
61
TECHNICAL AREA OVERVIEWS
AREA 9 OVERVIEW
PV MODULES AND TERRESTRIAL SYSTEMS
Chair
Joshua Stein, Sandia National
Laboratories, USA
Co-Chairs
Osamu Onodera, NEDO, Japan
Sub-Areas & Chairs
9.1:
Solar Resource Assessment -
Steve Ransome, SRCL, UK
9.2:
Optimizing Module-Scale
Performance: Materials, Design, and Construction - Alex
Cronin, Univ. of Arizona
9.3:
Inverters, Converters, Embedded Power Electrics,
and BOS - Stephen Pisklak, Dow
9.4:
PV Performance Modeling - Nate Blair, NREL
9.5:
Interconnecting PV to the Grid - Robert Broderick,
Sandia National Laboratories
9.6:
Advanced PV Systems and Smart Grid - Brian
Dougherty, NIST
The amount of innovation in the area of PV modules and
systems has been growing dramatically in recent years.
The PV sector is moving quickly from being a very small
part of the energy generation mix to becoming a major
component of the electrical power system. This rapid
growth is resulting in numerous challenges, including the
need to reduce uncertainty in the available solar resource,
the need to reduce manufacturing costs and increase
performance and reliability by developing newmodule and
BOS designs and materials, the need to increase system
efficiency at all steps in the power conversion process,
the need to streamline the interconnection process, and
the need to design and operate PV systems to integrate
with the “smart grid” of the future. We have divided this
broad area into six sub-areas, which are described
in more detail below. We welcome papers describing
technical advances in PV modules and systems.
