Interest in solar energy is definitely heating up. Alongside wind, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage, solar is considered one of the four technologies that can help reduce global carbon emissions. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which went into effect February 17, is also generating interest in solar energy, by providing a number of tax breaks and financial incentives designed to increase use of renewable resources such as solar and drive the development of new solar technologies.
With a growing interest in solar energy comes a growing demand for solar standards. Just take a look at the membership roster for ASTM International Technical Committee E44, which develops standard test methods, specifications, guides and recommended practices for solar- and geothermal-related technologies. In November, the committee had 95 members on its roster; by February, that number had jumped to 125.
“It’s like everybody wants to jump on the solar bandwagon,” says George Kelly, chair of E44. Having worked in the solar field for a number of years, Kelly has observed the industry expanding at a double-digits rate for the past 15 to 20 years. But in the last several years, interest has really taken off.
“It’s been a worldwide market boom really for solar for the past several years,” he says.
A look at the committee’s workload also highlights the fact that the number of needed standards seems to be keeping up with the rapidly expanding solar market.
“There’s a lot of new interest, a lot of people becoming involved [with E44] that weren’t before,” says Kelly. “So they’re compiling a big list of all the possible areas we might work on.” This list ranges from standards for equipment used in the manufacture of solar cells and reliability testing of solar panels to installation procedures and rating systems for solar panels to determine how to best predict how much energy they’re going to produce.
While the committee has yet to determine which of the items on its list it will tackle first, it’s already working on four new standards. One is a recommended practice for installing photovoltaic arrays on roofs, particularly residential roofs.
“There really isn’t any kind of existing standard. Everybody has been pretty much making up their own techniques as they go along. And there have been some problems where people either got a leaky roof out of the deal or the installers somehow damaged a roof because of the work they were doing installing the solar panels,” Kelly says.
Another document in the works is a standard for devices that concentrate solar power.
“Up until now there really hasn’t been any method established for how to test those things, because typically the hardware is very large and it’s difficult to test the whole thing,” Kelly explains. “So we have to try to come up with some way of making a small representative sample that can be shown to be reliable without having to test the whole big structure. The main reason for it would be for whoever is purchasing the product to have a good idea that it’s going to be reliable and that it’s going to perform as expected before they make a large investment.”
To learn more about E44 and the work it’s doing or to find out how to join the committee, contact Christine DeJong, manager of technical committee operations for ASTM, at 610-832-9736 or cdejong@astm.org.