Photovoltaic Module Reliability. John H. Wohlgemuth
John H. Wohlgemuth
Virginia
USA
This edition first published 2020
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Acknowledgments
In my 50‐year PV journey from graduate student through retirement from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), I have been assisted and befriended by many colleagues along the way. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge some of them.
The first one I would like to acknowledge is Hillard B. Huntington of RPI, my PhD thesis advisor. Then, I would like to acknowledge my two Post‐Doctorate advisors, Donald Brodie of the University of Waterloo who provided me with the opportunity to begin research work in semiconductors and Martin Wolf of the University of Pennsylvania who gave me the opportunity to begin my career in photovoltaics.
I certainly need to acknowledge the impact of Joseph Lindmayer and Peter Varadi on my career. They offered me the opportunity to work for Solarex, one of the first PV‐module manufacturers. Joseph provided me with my first education in PV while Peter provided the lessons in business. From the early days of Solarex, I would like to acknowledge the assistance and training I received from Chuck Wrigley, John Goldsmith, and Ramon Dominguez. I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of those who actually made the solar cells and modules for the technology group during this time including Don Warfield, Joe Creager, Dan Whitehouse, George Kelly, and Tim Koval. It was John Corsi and Alain Ricaud who brought me back to Solarex after a brief stint out of PV. Alain is also the one I must thank for getting me involved in IEC standards where I spent 40 years as a member of Working Group 2 (Modules) of IEC TC82 – the Technical Committee on PV. From that era at Solarex, I would also like to acknowledge the support from, and collaborations with, Ray Peterson, Steve Shea, Mohan Narayanan, Jim Emming, and Jean Posbic. I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Mark Conway and David Meakin who made most of the measurements for technology.
Solarex then became BP Solarex and finally just BP Solar. It was Peter Bihuniak who changed my focus from making more efficient and less expensive cells and modules to module reliability, performance measurements and standards. From the BP Solar days, I would like to recognize Steve Ransome, Danny Cunningham, David Carlson, Paul Garvison, and Zhiyong Xia for their contributions to PV and for their collaborations with me. I would also like to recognize the engineering staff from module technology, including Andy Nguyen, Jay Shaner, Jay Miller, Dinesh Amin, and Neil Placer.
I would like to thank Sarah Kurtz for facilitating my move to NREL. Sarah gave me the opportunity to transition my work in PV‐module reliability to NREL and beyond where it could impact much of the PV world. While at NREL, I would like to acknowledge support and collaboration with Sarah, Michael Kempe, Nick Bosco, and David Miller. I would also like to recognize a number of additional members of the NREL staff for their valuable work in PV including Dirk Jordan, Tim Silverman, Mike Deceglie, Ingrid Repins, and Peter Hacke.
There are also a number of people from outside the organizations that I worked for whom I would like to acknowledge for their collaborations with me and for their contributions to PV reliability including Bob Hammond of ASU, Govindasamy TamizhMani (Mani) of ASU, Neelkanth Dhere of FSEC, and Jim Galica of STR and Stevens Urethane.
I would also like to recognize specific contributions to IEC PV standards. PV standards would not be nearly as effective or as advanced as they are today if it weren't for the efforts of the secretaries to IEC TC82, particularly Jerry Anderson, Howard Barikmo, and George Kelly. I would also like to thank Steve Chalmers and Alex Mikonowicz, long‐serving technical advisors to the US TAG for IEC TC 82, for their efforts. I would particularly like to acknowledge Tony Sample, who took over the convenorship of WG2 when I retired. Chris Flueckiger and Kent Whitfield should also be recognized for the support they gave in developing the US version of the IEC module safety standard.
I would also like to acknowledge those who worked with me to found PVQAT ‐ namely Sarah Kurtz, Tony Sample, Michio Kondo, and Masaaki Yamamichi. I would like to thank my wife, Beth for all of her support and encouragement during my four decade PV career and particularly during the writing of this book.
Finally, PV in general and PV reliability in particular, has been a great technology field to work in with many dedicated professionals working together to advance the technology, and to solve the industry's problems and eventually the world's energy problems. For any students using this book for their University course work, I applaud your choice of a technology to study and hope that this book advances your knowledge in PV reliability and maybe encourages you to consider it for your career choice.