The universe of solar products is large and expanding exponentially. Most of us are not aware of the manifold applications of solar energy from photovoltaic modules and solar furnaces through manned air travel in planes that never need fuel. Of all of the emerging clean tech industries, the solar industry is one of the most challenging from a reliability engineering perspective because the industry is innovating so rapidly. Customers (and investors) are demanding very high reliability products, exceeding 25 years in many applications. As this industry grows and expands in every direction, with many new and diverse technologies, the core element of reliability will continue to be critical for success, whether we are powering our homes, cars, clothing or sidewalks.

1. Reliability
in
a
Solar
Universe
Mike
Silverman
&
Tom
Ortman
©2011
ASQ
&
Presenta>on
Silverman
&
Ortman
Presented
live
on
Nov
10th,
2011
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3. The Solar Universe
Confidence in Reliability
Mike Silverman Thomas Ortman
Managing Partner President
Ops A La Carte LLC Concurrent Design , Inc.
www.opsalacarte.com www.concurrentdesign.com
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

4. The Solar Universe
 AGENDA
– Introduction – 5 minutes
– Webinar – 45 minutes
– Q&A – 10 minutes
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

5. The Solar Universe
 INTRODUCTION
– Who Are We?
– Reliability vs. Regulatory Compliance Standards
– What we will cover today
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

6. The Solar Universe
 Who Are We?
– Ops A La Carte
 HQ in Santa Clara, CA
 Presenter: Mike Silverman, Managing Partner
– Concurrent Design
 HQ in Austin, TX
 Presenter: Tom Ortman, President/CEO
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

7. The Solar Universe
 Ops A La Carte
– Founded in 2001
– Named top 10 fastest growing, privately-held
companies in the Silicon Valley in 2006 and
2009 by the San Jose Business Journal.
– Over 1350 projects completed in 10 years
– Over 500 Customers in over 30 countries
– Over 100 different industries, 6 main verticals
 CleanTech, MedTech, Telecom, Defense, Oil/Gas, Consumer
– We run FREE monthly webinars.
 Next month is medical reliability on Dec 2.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

8. The Solar Universe
 Ops Solar Reliability Division
– We are the industry leader in reliability solutions in the
Solar market. We are committed to Highly Reliability
Systems to help save our planet.
– We provide Confidence in Reliability.
– We offer a flexible method of engagement:
 End-to-end reliability solutions
 solving specific problems
 providing individual services
 Over 30 different training courses in reliability
– We consult in every life cycle phase, train in every
aspect of reliability, and test in our state-of-the-art HALT
and HASS LabsTM
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

9. The Solar Universe
 Ops Solar Projects
 Armageddon Energy - FMEA for residential solar product
 Array Power - Rel. program for a micro-inverter
 Black Swan Solar – Accelerated Life Test for mechanical items
 Carmanah - Accelerated Life Test for marine solar product
 Enecsys - Accelerated Life Test and HALT for a micro-inverter
 Energy Innovations - Reliability Program Plan and ALT Plan for solar tracker
 Enphase Energy – Component Reliability Program
 Konarka - Accelerated Life Test for portable solar product
 National Semiconductor – Rel. program for a solar optimizer
 OptiSolar - Reliability Test Plan for solar inverter
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

10. The Solar Universe
 Ops Solar Projects continued
 Skyline Solar – FMEA and HALT on electronics
 Solar Bridge – Component Reliability Analysis
 Solar Electric Solutions - Warranty Analysis for solar product
 Solar Junction - Reliability program for solar product
 SolFocus - HALT for solar tracker controller
 SunPower - On-Going Reliability Test for solar product
 Thompson Technology – Root Cause Analysis for solar tracker
 Xandex - Reliability program for a solar optimizer
 Xantrex - HALT, FMEA, and Prediction for inverter for solar
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

11. The Solar Universe
 Concurrent Design, Inc.
– Founded in 1994
– Commercial Product Design
– Industrial Product Design
– Prototyping and Manufacturing Solutions
– Over 1600 Projects in 17 years
– Clients in US, Europe, Asia
– Strategic Focus: Electronics / Semiconductor /
Clean Energy / Solar Energy Product Design
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

12. The Solar Universe
 Concurrent Design Expertise
– Mechanical Engineering
 Industrial Design / Conceptual Layout
 Mechanical Design / Machine Design / E/M Pkg Design
– Electrical Engineering
 Power Distribution & Instrumentation and Control
 Human Interface Design / HMI / PC / PLC
– Thermal Engineering Analysis & Design
– Structural Analysis (FEM/FEA)
– Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
– Prototype Build & Engineering Verification
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

13. The Solar Universe
 Concurrent Solar Related Projects
 CPV – 500 X Optical Concentration – System Design – Structures
 PV – Flat Plate – Utility Scale – Emerging Applications
 PV – Flat Plate – Commercial Scale – Cost Reduction Application
 Racking System - High volume custom Utility Scale application
 Racking System – Custom Solar Panel Shock and Vibration Analysis
 Tracker – HelioStat - Solar Structures Engineering Analysis
 Tracker – Two Axis – Low Cost, High Volume Commercial / Residential Scale
 Inverter – Electro-Mechanical Packaging Design
 Emerging Technology – R&D level activities focused on future generation
 Processing Equipment - High Volume Wafer Processing
 Test Equipment - Thin Film - Current Density and Voltage, Quantum Efficiency
 Test Equipment - Thin Film - Solar Spectrum Light Soaker Test Equipment
 Test Equipment - Monocrystalline - Flash Test Equipment
 Manufacturing Tools – Vacuum Process Chamber Analysis and Design
 Manufacturing Systems – Manufacturing Plant Line Layout, Custom Equipmt
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

14. The Solar Universe
 Presenter 1: Mike Silverman
– Founder and managing partner at Ops A La Carte
– 25 years of experience in Reliability/Quality
– World expert on HALT/HASS/ALT
– Offers “HALT Calculator” to predict field failure rate from
HALT results – being used by many solar companies
– Author of “How Reliable Is Your Product: 50 Ways to
Improve Product Reliability”, Dec 2010
– Book soon to be released in Mandarin
– International speaker in 8 different countries
– BSEE, CRE
– IEEE ReliabilityOps A La CarteSilicon Valley Chapter Chair
Society and Concurrent Design

15. The Solar Universe
 Presenter 2: Tom Ortman
– Founder and managing partner at Concurrent Design
– 35 years of experience
 Commercial and Industrial Product Development
 Manufacturing Process Technologies
 Manufacturing Solutions
– BS Mechanical Engineering
– Speaker on Solar Products and Technologies
– SEMI Texas Chapter Chair
– Founding Partner – CleanTX Foundation
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

16. The Solar Universe
 Reliability vs. Regulatory Compliance
Standards
– Reliability ensures product performance over life
– Regulatory Compliance Standards ensure safety
and compliance to industry standards
– There is a big overlap between the two
– There are big differences between the two
– In this seminar we will focus on Reliability
– Assess confidence in the warranty you are
providing (bankability!)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

17. The Solar Universe
 Regulatory Compliance Standards
– Before we move on, one slide on standards
 IEC 61215 – “Crystalline silicon terrestrial photovoltaic (PV)
modules - Design qualification and type approval”
 IEC 61646 – “Thin-film terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) modules -
Design qualification and type approval”
 IEC 62093 – Micro-inverter standard (in process)
 IEC 62108 – “Concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules and
assemblies - Design qualification and type approval”
 IEC 61730 – “Photovoltaic (PV) module safety qualification”
 IEEE 1503-2001 “CPV Qualifications for Sections and Modules”
 UL 1703 – “Flat-Plate Photovoltaic Modules and Panels”
– This list is not a complete list
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

18. The Solar Universe
“What is the
universe of solar
products?”
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

19. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

20. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

21. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

22. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

23. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

24. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

25. The Solar Universe
With acknowledgment to TechSearch International
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent
Design

26. The Solar Universe
“What is the
universe of solar
products?”
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

27. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

28. The Solar Universe
 EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INSOLATION
(SOLAR CONSTANT) ~1366W/M^2
 VISIBLE LIGHT 46%, INFRARED 47%,
ULTRAVIOLET 6%
 TERRESTRIAL INSOLATION
~1000W/M^2 (MAXIMUM - DNI)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

29. The Solar Universe
“What is the
universe of solar
products?”
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

30. The Solar Universe
In today’s presentation, we will cover the
following areas of the solar universe.
 PhotoVoltaic Technology (PV)
 Concentrated PhotoVoltaic Technology (CPV)
 Built-In PhotoVoltaic Technology (BIPV)
 Future Solar Technology
 Concentrating Solar Power Technology (CSP)
 Solar Thermal Technologies
 General Solar Technology
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

31. The Solar Universe
Reliability in the Solar Universe
Reliability is going to play an important role for all of
these industries because these industries are
usually trying to take the place of an incumbent.
Some of the reliability challenges are:
 Higher Reliability Demands
 Higher Availability Demands
 Higher Warranty Requirements
 New Materials/New Risks
 Pressure on reducing power
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

32. The Solar Universe
Reliability in the Solar Universe
Reliability Techniques in Each Product Life Cycle Phase
CONCEPT PHASE
DESIGN/DEVELOPMENT PHASE
PROTOTYPE PHASE
MANUFACTURING PHASE
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

33. The Solar Universe
Reliability in the Solar Universe
CONCEPT PHASE RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES
○ Assessment / Goal Setting / Gap Analysis
○ Competitive Analysis / Benchmarking
○ Reliability Program Plan Development
DESIGN/DEVEL. PHASE RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES
○ RoHS Conversion / Material Selection
○ Risk Analysis/FMEA
○ Reliability Modeling
○ Thermal Analysis
○ Derating Analysis
○ Preventive Maintenance
○ Warranty Predictions (Bankability Analysis)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

34. The Solar Universe
Reliability in the Solar Universe
PROTOTYPE PHASE RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES
○ HALT
○ Reliability Demonstration Test
○ Accelerated Life Test
MANUFACTURING PHASE RELIABILITY TECHNIQUES
○ HASS
○ ORT/OLT
○ Field Data Analysis/Warranty Review
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

35. The Solar Universe
For each type of system that we cover,
we will describe the technology and then
point out some of the reliability risks and
what we are doing to mitigate these risks.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

36. The Solar Universe
PhotoVoltaic
Technology
PV
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

37. The Solar Universe
 PhotoVoltaic Technology (PV)
– Cells/Modules (Panels)
– Racking/Trackers
– Inverters/Converters
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

38. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

39. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

40. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

41. The Solar Universe
Reliability Risks of Panels
Failure Modes Failure Effects Reliability Technique
Temperature Cycling Seal Loss/Cell Degradation Environmental testing
Voltage Mismatch Pulls down all the voltages Derating Analysis/Electr. Char.
Humidity enters panel Corrosion/Loss of Efficiency Environmental testing
Poor soldering joints Early failures HASS
Panels get dirty Loss of efficiency Preventive maintenance
Earthquake Breaking Environmental testing
Hail/Bad Weather Breaking Environmental testing
Walking on Breaking HALT (using increasing weight)
Birds pecking at panels Damage to panels, wiring HALT (using increasing pressure)
Premature Aging Warranty Concerns Matl/Warranty Analysis/ALT
UV Exposure Embrittlement/Seal Loss UV ALT
Vibration Failure Broken Connections Environmental testing
Manufacturing Defects Various (many cases of fires) HASS/ORT/OLT
Installation Failure Various (many cases of fires) High voltage HALT
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

42. The Solar Universe
 CASE STUDY: Vibration Failure on Module
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

43. The Solar Universe
POLLING QUESTION 1: Are you familiar
with the following environmental techniques
used to characterize/mitigate failures?
 Temperature Cycling
 HALT
 HASS
 OLT/ORT
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

44. The Solar Universe
PhotoVoltaic
Technology
Racking/Trackers
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

45. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

46. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

47. The Solar Universe
SPG Solar
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

48. The Solar Universe
Tracker Reliability
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

49. The Solar Universe
Reliability Trade-offs with Trackers
 Do you track by minute or once
an hour or a few times a day?
–Minute by minute will give you higher
efficiency but lower reliability
–You must optimize this for your
application
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

50. The Solar Universe
Reliability Risks of Trackers
Failure Modes Failure Effects Rel. Technique
Mechanical Failures Lose efficiency ALT
High winds System Failure Wind Loading Analysis
Installation Failure Weakens tracker, reduces life Design for Installation
Faulty Algorithm Tracker over-adjusts & breaks Software FMEA
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

51. The Solar Universe
 CASE STUDY: RCA on Tracker Failure
– Customer Failure During Windstorm
– We went to site and reviewed evidence
– Tools: Material Analysis, Wind-loading Analysis
– Conclusions:
 Change in Design after Windloading Analysis
 Installation Error caused weak member
 Software Bug caused overtracking
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

52. The Solar Universe
POLLING QUESTION 2: Are you familiar
with reliability techniques used to
characterize life of trackers?
 Mechanical loading analysis
 Prognostics to detect early failure signs
 Accelerated life testing
 Weibull field data analysis
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

53. The Solar Universe
PhotoVoltaic
Technology
Inverters/Converters
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

54. The Solar Universe
Conversion
Inverters DC-AC
–String level (Scale)
–Micro Inverters
DC-DC Converters (Optimizers)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

55. The Solar Universe
Inverters
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

56. The Solar Universe
Inverters
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

57. The Solar Universe
Micro-inverters
Enphase Micro-Inverters
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

58. The Solar Universe
DC-DC Converter (Optimizers)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

59. The Solar Universe
“In addition to rigorous internal testing, Santa
Clara, Calif.- based Ops a La Carte provided
reliability testing of National's SolarMagic power
optimizer at its HALT & HASS Labs in Santa
Clara. Ops a La Carte has had a long-term
presence in the reliability field, conducting
extensive reliability testing for the aerospace,
automotive, medical, telecom, defense & energy
(including fuel cell, oil and solar) industries”
- - National Semiconductor PR Department.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

60. The Solar Universe
“The reliability modeling for the SunMizer(TM), a
solar product manufactured by Xandex Solar, has
an expected Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF)
of more than 500 years. Xandex has leveraged
their experience in designing high quality, high
technology products by utilizing Ops A La Carte for
Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT) and Highly
Accelerated Stress Screening (HASS) to produce
the SunMizer(TM)”
- - - Xandex PR Department.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

61. The Solar Universe
Reliability Trade-off with Inverters
 Is it better to use DC-DC or DC-AC?
 Is it better to have one large inverter
or many micro-inverters?
 Is it better to place the inverter on
the back of the panel or away from
the elements?
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

62. The Solar Universe
Reliability Trade-offs with Inverters
 Currently the reliability of large
inverters is 7-10 years while panels
are pushing 25 years. Big single
point failure here.
 Micro-inverter companies are starting
to claim 25 years.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

63. The Solar Universe
Reliability Risks of Inverters/Converters
Failure Modes Failure Effects Rel. Technique
Electronics degradation Won’t meet long life HALT
ECap Failures Won’t meet long life ALT
Solder Joints Wear Out Won’t meet long life Lifetime Analysis
Solder Joint Defects Early Failures HASS
Connector contacts wear Won’t meet long life ALT
Seal integrity broken Won’t meet long life ALT
Lightning Early/Catastrophic Failure Environmental testing
Voltage spikes from grid Early/Catastrophic Failure Electrical testing
Wrong Phase Match Early/Catastrophic Failure Electrical testing
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

64. The Solar Universe
 CASE STUDY: Availability Analysis on Inverter
– Customer needed to maximize availability
– We performed FMEA to identify key risks
– Design Analyses – Prediction, FMEA, Derating,
Thermal Analyses
– Conclusions:
 Reducing stresses in key areas increased availability
 We implemented prognostics to the equipment to detect
early failures and perform preventive maintenance,
thereby increasing the availability.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

65. The Solar Universe
POLLING QUESTION 3: Are you familiar
with reliability techniques used during design
characterization for inverters/converters?
 FMEA
 Derating Analysis
 Thermal Analysis
 Finite Element Analysis
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

66. The Solar Universe
Concentrated
PhotoVoltaic
Technology
CPV
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

67. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

68. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

69. The Solar Universe
Emcore Corporation
500X 2 Axis CPV Array
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

70. The Solar Universe
Reliability Risks of CPV
Failure Modes Failure Effects Rel. Technique
Degradation of Optics Less Concentrated Energy Life Testing on Optics
Degradation of Glues/Mounts Less Concentrated Energy Life Testing on Glues
Optics Get Dirty Less Concentrated Energy Envir Test on Sealing
Optical Tolerancing Less Concentrated Energy DFSS
Thermal Issues Loss of Productivity Thermal Analysis
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

71. The Solar Universe
Built in
PhotoVoltaic
Technology
BIPV
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

72. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

73. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

74. The Solar Universe
Sanyo Solar
Arc
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

75. The Solar Universe
Reliability Implications with BIPV
 If infrastructure then more expensive
to change.
 Becomes a critical system.
 New age of building material that
must be very reliable.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

76. The Solar Universe
Reliability Risks of BIPV
Failure Modes Failure Effects Mitigations
Failure resulting in replacement Tear into building Design so that systems can be maintained
Failure of critical element Power loss to whole system Build in redundancy
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

77. The Solar Universe
Future
Solar
Technology?
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

78. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

79. The Solar Universe
Solar Clothing
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

80. The Solar Universe
Hybrid Solar
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

81. The Solar Universe
Nanotechnology based Solar
Nanocolumns of hematite,
one of the iron oxide
compounds that
Professors Allen Bard and
Buddie Mullins are testing
in their efforts to convert
sunlight to fuel.
Professor Allen Bard
University of Texas at
Austin
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

82. The Solar Universe
Hybrid Solar
MTPV Corporation
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

83. The Solar Universe
3DIC w / TSV
Three Dimensional Integrated Circuits with Through Silicon Vias
With acknowledgment to TechSearch International
With acknowledgment to TechSearch International
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent
Design

84. The Solar Universe
Reliability Challenges with
Future Solar Technologies
 Often new materials that have not
yet been proven
 Often expanded environmental
requirements
– temperature
– mechanical stress
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

85. The Solar Universe
Concentrating
Solar Power
Technology
CSP
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

86. The Solar Universe
Solar
Trough
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) vs. PhotoVoltaic (PV) collector.
Photovoltaic collectors use electronics (chips) to convert sunlight into
electricity, while thermal solar collectors (CSP) concentrate heat and directly
or indirectly convert this to electricity.
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design
Source csposi.org

87. The Solar Universe
Solar Power Tower (Solucar PS10, Spain)
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

88. The Solar Universe
Solar Thermal
Technologies
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

89. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

90. The Solar Universe
General
Solar
Technology
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

91. The Solar Universe
Solar Impulse
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

92. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

93. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

94. The Solar Universe
TÛRANOR PlanetSolar
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

95. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

96. The Solar Universe
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

97. The Solar Universe
Reliability Challenges with
General Solar
 Often expanded environmental
requirements
– temperature
– mechanical stress
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design

98. The Solar Universe
Confidence in Reliability
Mike Silverman Thomas Ortman
Managing Partner President
Ops A La Carte LLC Concurrent Design , Inc.
www.opsalacarte.com www.concurrentdesign.com
Ops A La Carte and Concurrent Design