FMECA Technique on Photovoltaic Module

Marcantonio Catelani1, Lorenzo Ciani1, Loredana Cristaldi2, Marco Faifer2, Massimo Lazzaroni3, Paola Rinaldi4
1

Dipartimento di Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni - Universit degli Studi di Firenze - Firenze, Italy

marcantonio.catelani@unifi.it - lorenzo.ciani@unifi.it
2
Dipartimento di Elettrotecnica - Politecnico di Milano - Milano, Italy,
loredana.cristaldi@polimi.it - marco.faifer@polimi.it
3
Dipartimento di Tecnologie dellInformazione - Universit degli Studi di Milano - Crema (CR), Italy
massimo.lazzaroni@unimi.it
4
Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informatica, Sistemistica - Universit degli Studi di Bologna- Bologna, Italy
prinaldi@deis.unibo.it

Abstract The solar photovoltaic industry has seen rapid

expansion in the past decade with an ever-increasing share of the
electricity-generating capacity for the world. For the emerging
photovoltaic (PV) industry the assessment of the quality and
reliability of its products is becoming more and more important.
To this aim and to ensure an optimal design and material choice,
a failure modes, effects and criticality analysis methodology
(FMECA) to classify the occurrence, the severity and the impact
of all possible failure mechanisms on the PV system has been
introduced. This helps to eliminate or reduce the impact of
potential failure modes before the completion of the design and
before failures occur in the field. By means of this analysis it can
be noticed that a crucial aspect in PV systems is the cleaning
status of the panel surface. In this paper this problem has been
analyzed by means of an experimental activity. Finally a method
for the assessment of the PV panel condition has been proposed.
Keywords FMEA, FMECA, Dependability, Reliability,
Failure mode, Fault, Diagnostic, Perceived Solar Radiation Level.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays an increasing worldwide interest in sustainable

energy production and use is indisputable. To this aim
different energy sources that will have a role in distributed
generation and sustainable energy systems can be now
considered such as photovoltaic (PV) panels, fuel cells stack,
and batteries of various chemistries. In this paper PV panels
are taken into account as promising application in alternative
energy source. In fact in more recent years the number of plant
based on the use of PV panels are increased and,
consequently, the number of installed PV panels increased too.
Although photovoltaic modules are a very reliable source of
electrical energy, field results [1], [2] indicate that the modules
can fail or degrade in a number of ways. In this new scenario
its fundamental to guarantee the functionality of both the
plant and the PV panels but also, in the same time, the
reliability and maintainability performances. According to the
Standards [3], the reliability can be considered as the ability of
an item in our case the PV panel to maintain its
functionality in the time, under specified environmental and

978-1-4244-7935-1/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

use conditions. Maintainability is defined, instead, as the

ability of the item under given condition of use, to be retained
in, or restored to, a state in which it can perform a required
function, when maintenance is performed under given
conditions and using stated procedures and resources. Its easy
to understand that the evaluation of reliability and
maintainability performances can be made if are known the
failure conditions for the equipment under test.
In order to maximize the aforementioned characteristics,
failure event would be taken into account, studied and
predicted. Many techniques can be used in order to
characterize failure events. In particular, we refer to Failure
Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and the Failure Modes
Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA), because before
trying to eliminate or even reduce the PV degradation and
failure modes, a thorough understanding of their origin and
behavior is required [4]-[6]. On the basis of the knowledge of
the failure modes and failure mechanisms both techniques are
able to give improvements of Maintainability and Safety
performances of the equipment under test.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section II a brief
overview of the FMECA analysis is given. Successively, in
Section III the FMECA technique applied on a PV panel will
be described. Based on the results of this analysis, in Section
IV and Section V the measurement set-up and the test phase
are discussed and, finally in the conclusions are presented. A
brief review of the main concepts on FMECA will be also
reported.
II.

BASIC CONCEPTS ON FMECA

This section presents a brief review of some concepts

concerning FMECA analysis technique [7]-[9]. Such method,
treated in the technical standards edited by the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and in particular by the
Technical Committee IEC TC 56 Dependability, can
adequately give both qualitative and quantitative evaluations
about failure modes. The methods of analysis that will be

discussed in this section allow evaluating the failure modes to

which a system is or could be subjected to. Furthermore, the
results obtained allow the designer to identify any
modification which must be made in order to improve the
RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety)
requirements of the product, item or system. The potentialities
of the FMECA technique in the electrical and electronics
application field are shown also in other several cases [10-12].
FMECA is an inductive analysis method that starts from
the lowest level, for example the failure of a single component
(mechanical, electrical, etc.) that has an effect on the entire
system. In such a case, a profound and detailed knowledge of
the system and its structure is required to study failures.
Inductive methods are generally rather stringent and well
designed to identify all the individual failure modes. An
analysis of this type gives its best results when conducted in
the final planning or design phase although it can be profitably
used even in different phases of the design process.
FMECA technique permits to analyze a system in order to
identify potential failure modes (the manner in which an item
fails), their cause and effect (the consequence of a failure
mode) on performance and, when applicable, their effect on
the safety of people, on the environment and on the system.
Finally the concept of criticality is introduced. Criticality is a
way to quantify the attention it is opportune to give to a
determined failure, event or non-conformity and depends both
on the probability of its occurrence and the gravity of the
consequences it may have. The attention to dedicate to an
event depends first of all on the effect it may have on the
safety of personnel, on the damage it can cause with
subsequent losses and its effect on the availability of service.
It is rather difficult to define a generally valid criterion to
evaluate criticality because the concept of the seriousness of
the consequences and their probability of their happening
come into play. The seriousness level can vary and can be
evaluated differently if the objective, for example, regards the
safety of personnel, damage and relative losses, or the
availability of service. Criticality is defined by means of a
scale of values that allows evaluating the seriousness of
consequences in function of the criteria taken into
consideration. In [8] a classification with four principal levels
of the gravity of consequences is presented. However, it would
be noted that different levels may also be used in function of
the specific application under investigation.
Different types of critical failure modes can be identified.
A scale of criticality based on the following categories is
generally valid (as described in [8]): a) death or injury to the
public or company personnel; b) damage to this or other
equipment; c) economic damage deriving from loss of output
or loss of system functions and finally, d) inability to perform
a function due to inability of equipment to properly perform
its principal function. The choice of criticality categories
requires careful study and prudence. It is necessary to take into
account all the factors that have an impact on the evaluation of
the system, its performance, costs, programs, safety and risks.
A criticality analysis is further performed to enable a
priority ranking among the identified failure modes and
effects. This ranking is done using a quantitative index, called

Risk Priority Number (RPN), given by the following:

RPN = S O D
where S (Severity) represents the estimate of how strongly
the effects of a failure impacts on the system or user
(personnel or customer for example) and its related to the
defined boundaries of the analyzed system; O (Occurrence)
represents the probability that a failure mode will be
manifested in a determined time that usually coincides with
the useful life of the component under examination. At this
aim, it is necessary to have access to detailed information
regarding the reliability of components/devices utilized, for
example the failure rate or field data feedback. The parameter
D (Detection) is the estimate of the possibility of
identifying/diagnosing and eliminating/preventing the onset of
a breakdown before its effects are manifested on the system or
personnel. This number is usually ranked in reverse order
from the severity or occurrence numbers: the higher the
detection number D, the less probable is the possibility of
identifying the failure and vice versa. Starting from these
considerations the lower probability of detection leads to a
higher RPN; this indicates the necessity to resolve the failure
mode with maximum priority and speed.
For each of these indices (S, O, D) it is necessary a
detailed analysis in order to identify their appropriate values,
related to the type of application and the operating
environment. The indices assessment for the PV module under
examination can be summarized as shown in Table I.
TABLE I.

CRITERIA FOR THE OCCURENCE, SEVERITY AND

DETECTABILITY OF POTENTIAL HAZARDS

Occurrence
(O)
Improbable:
Unlikely to occur
in the life of the
system
Remote:
Occurs 1 time in
a maintenance
cycle
Occasional:
Occurs 2 times in
a maintenance
cycle
Probable:
Occurs 3 times in
a maintenance
cycle
Frequent:
Likely to occur at
least once a
month in the
operating life of
the system

Severity
(S)
Insignificant
Marginal:
Low produced
power decreasing

Detection
(D)
Automatic
detection
with
warning
Automatic
detection
without
warning

Score

1-2

3-4

Critical:
High produced
power decreasing

Detected
by the
operator

5-6

Very critical:
temporary block of
the PV system

Impossible
to detect
by the
operator

7-8

Catastrophic:
possible injuries of
the user or operator

Impossible
to detect

9-10

III.

DISCUSSION ABOUT FMECA ON PV SYSTEMS

Renewable energy systems are fairly reliable, but like any

complex system, they may fail, and the effects of failures
should be analyzed and accounted for. Based on this topic, this
section presents an assessment of the failure modes, effects
and criticality of a PV system. Table II shown an abstract of
FMECA analysis results and the major failure modes are
analyzed and classified in terms of criticality. This analysis
provides critical input for future improvements in module
reliability and it provides important data on the long term wear
out or failure of PV modules. As already said, the RPN was
used to prioritize all potential failure modes to decide upon
actions that would lower the risk by reducing the likelihood of
occurrence and improving controls for detecting the failure.
Furthermore, considering the most critical hazard, based on
RPN value, it is possible to plan a series of tests on the PV
module under examination in order to optimize its
performances during the installation on the field.
In particular, the obtained results suggest a good
maintenance activity of the panels. In fact the higher RPN
value is related to the presence of powder on the panel and its
effects on the whole PV system. But also other high RPN
values can be decrease by means of an optimize planning of
maintenance: for example those failures due to clamp/terminal
damaged or PV cell fracture. A further suggestion regards the
TABLE II.

Module

It

Failure
mode

Possible
Failure
cause

Detected
symptom

type of maintenance to be applied. It would be noted that a

condition based maintenance (CBM) program can be very
interesting in this situation. In fact, in order to take into
account the necessity to remove the powder on the panel, for
example, different kinds of approaches are possible:
Maintenance based on the time: once or twice a year the
panels are cleaned; this way to proceed is not able to get
the best performance due to the fact that the cleaning
operation is performed without take into account the
actual situation of the panel surface. For example the
operation is performed after rain time when a natural way
to remove the powder has operated. This way to operate is
similar to an open loop control system.
Maintenance based on a well-defined condition. In this
case a monitoring activity is necessary. Monitoring of the
plant or panel efficiency can give information concerning
when it is opportune to clean the panel surface. It would
be highlighted that the maintenance is, sometimes, a very
expansive operation both form economical point of view
and pollution point of view. This way to operate is similar
to a closed loop control system.
On the base of these considerations in the following the
problem of powder on panel surface will be analyzed. In
particular the severity of the problem and a possible method of
identification will be discussed.

AN EXTRACT OF THE PV MODULE FMECA ANALYSIS

Local
Effect

Final
effect

Compensating
provision
against failure

RPN

Recommendation

Non
conformity of
front glass
(scratch ,
bubble,
intrusion)

Sandwich closing
in not correct way

Aging of
elements inside
the sandwich and
reduction of the
long term
reliability

Produced
power
decreasing

Support
structure
maintenance

60

Open circuit

PV cell fracture

Produced power
lowering

100

Laying care

Absorbed power
lowering

Annual
inspection of
the PV module
Spear parts
change

Aging of contact
between PV panel

Produced
power
decreasing
Produced
power
decreasing

80

Periodic
maintenance of
the contacts

Short circuit

Misalignment
between PV cell
string

Out of service of
a part of the PV
module

Produced
power
decreasing

144

Heart failure

Sandwich
insulation fault

Plant out of
service

90

Welding not
correct
Shadowing and
by-pass diode
failure

90

Powder

Atmospheric
event

Junction
perforation with
localized
overheating and
PV module
damage
Produced power
decreasing

Periodic
inspection of
the plant
PV panel
installation in
area without
continuous
shadowing

Hot-spot

Produced
power
nulling
Produced
power
decreasing

Structure
maintenance

252

Connection
box defective

Clamp/Terminal
damaged

Produced power
decreasing

Produced
power
decreasing
Produced
power
decreasing

Spear parts
change

150

Protection
systems

Monthly cleaning

EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

As stated before, the FMECA shows that the maximum

value of RPN is related to the presence of powder on the panel
surface. By increasing the powder a decrease of the generated
power can be registered. Starting from the results obtained by
the FMECA, an experimental activity has been carried out. In
particular the aim of the experimental activity was to directly
quantify the effect of the powder on the PV panels
performances. In Fig. 1 the utilized experimental setup is
shown.

Another important characteristic of the developed setup is

its capability to guarantee a constant temperature on the
surface of the analyzed panel. This is key because, as well
known, the PV panel performance heavily depends on its
temperature [13].
250
240

PV

230

Load

Fig. 1: Experimental setup for measurement on PV.

The core of the experimental setup is the light source that

has been properly designed. In fact, in order to analyze the PV
panel performances degradations a repeatable and stable light
source must be used. For this reason a luminous source made
up by a matrix of 3 3 LED array has been designed and
assembled. In particular 9 arrays of 4 LED Oslon Star White
by OSRAM have been used. This source allows achieving, in
a quite easy way, a repeatable output; in fact it can be shown
that by properly controlling the supply current and the cooling
system these components feature a good emitting stability. It
must be noted that the light spectrum obtained by this source
is quite different by the one of the sun (Fig. 2).

Power ratio

panels performances we are interested in. In fact since an

analysis based on a comparison will be done, as
aforementioned, the crucial characteristic of the light source is
its repeatability and stability.

1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0

220

Radiation (W/m2)

IV.

210
200
190
180
170
160
150
-10.5

10.5

Position (cm)
PV Panel active area

Center of PV panel

Fig. 3: Radiation distribution.

V.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

With the experimental setup depicted in Fig. 1, two PV

panels in different cleaning conditions have been compared. In
particular panels built with polycrystalline technology have
been analyzed (TABLE III). The panel dimensions are
24.523.2 cm while its active area is 21 18.5 cm.
TABLE III.

350

450

550

650

750

Wavelenght (nm)
Fig. 2: Power spectrum of the LED.

However, for the analysis we want to perform it is more

important to guarantee the repeatability and the reproducibility
of the measurements. The source has been characterized
mapping its emission by means of a radiometer (NR01 Hukseflux). The source light radiation at a distance of 28 cm
is shown in Fig. 3. By analyzing the light source emission, it
can be noticed that the radiation it is not perfectly uniform. In
fact, if an area of 2118.5 cm is considered, corresponding to
the active area of the PV panels that have been employed for
this analysis, a maximum variation of 30% has been measured
(Fig. 3). The maximum variation is measured at the right side
of the aforementioned figure. Also this not ideality, with
respect to the sun, is not crucial for the evaluation of the PV

Pmax
Vpm
Ipm
Voc
Isc

: PV PANEL CHARACTERISTICS

5W
17.5 V
0.285 A
21.3 V
0.31 A

A first analysis has been done by evaluating the effect of

the ambient pollution on the PV panel performances. For this
analysis the panel PV1 has been used. In Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 the
I-V curve and the P-V curve obtained with the clean PV panel
and after a 15 days long exposition to the outside pollution are
reported (average values of the air pollution are: PM10 equal
to 46 g/m3 and PM2.5 equal to 38 g/m3 [14]). The little
knee on I-V characteristic is due to the not perfect uniformity
of the light source. However, it can be noticed that this non
ideality of the source does not affect the comparison: the PV
panel behavior in the two conditions is compatible. By means
of this comparison it can be shown that even a short exposition
of the PV to pollution affects its performances. In fact a

reduction of 1.6% of the generated power, at the MPP, has

been measured.

45

A further investigation has been performed by using the

second PV panel (PV2). In this case, measurements have been
performed after having applied different concentration of
powder on the PV panel surface. The experimental results are
plotted in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7: as expected the higher the
concentration of the powder the lower the generated power. In
order to highlight the effects of the powder on the MPP, its
reduction with respect to the powder concentration has been
plotted in Fig. 8.

35

Increasing Powder quantity

Clean

40

Powder 4 g/m2

Current (mA)

30

Powder 20 g/m2

25
20

Powder 40 g/m2

15
10
5

45

0
0

40

10

Current (mA)

35

20

Fig. 6: PV2 panel: experimental results for cleaned and not cleaned panel.

30
25
20

600

15
15 days after cleaning

10
5

Powder 4 g/m2

Clean

500

Clean
0

10

15

20

Voltage (V)
Fig. 4: I-V characteristic of PV1 panel.

600

Power (mW)

400
Powder 20 g/m2

300
200

Powder 40 g/m2

15 days after cleaning

500

Power (mW)

15

Voltage (V)

100

Clean

400

0
0

300
200

10
Voltage (V)

15

20

Fig. 7: PV2 panel: experimental results for clean and not clean panel.

0
0

10

15

20

Voltage (V)
(b)
Fig. 5: P-V characteristic of PV1 panel.

An interesting analysis can be performed by analyzing the

plot reported in Fig. 9. In this figure the characteristic solar
radiation with respect to MPP and concentration of powder
with respect to MPP, with a constant solar radiation of
240 W/m2, are reported. This plot allows to evaluate the
cleaning status of the PV panel, taking into account both MPP
and solar radiation values.

MPP Reduction %

100

-5

-10
-20

-27

-30
-40
-51

-50
-60

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Powder concentration (g/m2) [0 = clean PV]

Fig. 8: PV2 panel: plot of MPP Reduction Vs powder concentration.

45

VI.

0
230

5
10

190

15

Radiation

170

20

150

25

130

30

110

Powder (g/m2)

Radiation (W/m2)

210

35

90

Powder

70

40

50

In this paper an analysis of the PV system fault modes is

presented and discussed. The analysis has shown that the
higher RPN value is related to the presence of powder on the
panel surface. For this reason an experimental activity oriented
to a further evaluation of this problem has been performed.
The obtained results confirm the severity of this problem.
Moreover a proposal of techniques for the continuous
evaluation of the PV panel efficiency has been also presented.
REFERENCES

45
250

300

350

400

450

500

550

MPP (mW)

[1]

Fig. 9: Radiation vs MPP and powder concentration vs MPP (computed with a

radiation of 240 W/m2) (PV2).

[2]

The MPP reduction due to the powder leads to the

definition of the Perceived Solar Radiation Level (PSRL).
When the panel is clean the PSRL is equal to the actual solar
radiation while the increase of pollution on the panel surface
causes a decrease of the PSRL. This reduction can be
evaluated by analyzing the MPP as shown in Fig. 9. On this
plot it can be seen that for a given value of MPP two
conditions can be defined: clean panel with a given value of
solar radiation or dirty panel with a higher value of solar
radiation. For example, for the analyzed panel PV2, a value of
MPP of 350 mW can be obtained with a solar radiation of
170 W/m2 and a clean panel or a solar radiation of 240 W/m2
and a panel on which surface a powder concentration of about
27 g/m2 is present. Actually the effective solar radiation is
70 W/m2 lower than the actual solar radiation.

[3]

Starting from these considerations, in order to evaluate the

efficiency of the panel, for each working temperature it is
possible to define the relation solar radiation MPP. These
curves can be used for estimating the value of PSRL and
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knowing the MPP of the panel, the PSRL can be estimated.
Now by considering the actual value of radiation, obtained by
means of a radiometer, the value of MPP of panel perfectly
clean can be defined. The difference between the two values
of MPP is an index of the reduction of performances.
Therefore on the base of this index a CBM approach can be
implemented for the PV module.

CONCLUSIONS

[4]
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