PVTIME – In recent years, based on the manufacturing cost savings brought by the increase of wafer and module size, the size and power of PV modules have jumped rapidly. The module power for power plants has increased from 400W to nearly 550W, and some oversized modules have reached 600W and above. The size and current of modules have also increased, the area of oversized module is 2.8m2 and the working current is more than 17A.
As the birthplace of large-size module, China is also the first market to apply various large-size modules. After a period of attempts, some domestic central and state-owned enterprises have also limited the current and size of modules in project bidding:
I. In the bidding for 240MW modules of Haiba, Qiaojia county, Yunnan Province, China Three Gorges Corporation requires that the working current of the modules shall not be higher than 15A;
II. The second phase of module bidding of China Southern Power Grid in 2021 also requires that the module working current shall not exceed 15A;
III. The third batch of module bidding of Guangdong electric power development company in 2021 still has clear restrictions on module size: The module length shall not be greater than 2288mm, and the module width shall be between 1133 and 1136mm.
In addition to reliability risks, the selection of modules also needs to consider the problems of operation and maintenance of PV plants. The scale advantage and long-term stable operation of module manufacturers, and high-reliability standard PV modules are undoubtedly the best solutions for countering operation and maintenance problems, which can PV power plants secure module fault replacement needs during the 25 ~ 30 years of service.
