Standards are needed to define the requirements to be met in order to achieve a measurable quality. The objectives of standardisation are to:
R&D brings on the market new components and systems that need to be standardised. There are various levels and organisations to perform such standards, which in the end reflect state of the art:
National level: standards and in some countries technical recommendations (such as the CSTB in France, IEEE in the USA). These standards can be implemented in a relatively short period. Dozens of such national, regional or project specific standards exist for Photovoltaic component and systems all over the world. Harmonisation of all these standards is needed. However, introducing standards on an international level from the beginning would facilitate achieving international harmonisation.
European level: CENELEC is elaborating and publishing few standards (such as PV module labelling).
International level: International Electro technical Commission (IEC). 29 standards on PV are published with another 9 nearing IEC publication, as per May 2003. Many IEC standards are now being accepted as National Standards in the various countries.
Specific initiatives: PV GAP, World Bank, GTZ, EEC (programme tests, standards, reliability GENEC-92/96 + universal standard (Madrid-96) has been launched in the past 15 years to ease and accelerate market introduction of PV products and systems.
The standards of IEC are to override potentially all national and regional standards, whenever possible, to ease international trade. The work for PV standards is within Technical Committee 82. This Committee include 6 working groups (WG) and 3 joint working groups involving other TC’s. (JWG)
WG1: Glossary: 9 experts
WG2: PV Modules (21 standards published) - 19 experts
WG3: PV Systems (12 standards published) - 31 experts
WG5: Certification + labs - 12 experts
WG6: Balance Of Systems - 24 experts
WG7: Concentrators - 8 experts
JWG TC21/TC82: PV storage — 4 TC 82 experts
JCG TC21/82/88/105: Renewable Energy System (RES) for Rural Electrification – 24 experts
The need of international, globally accepted standards is obvious, in order to avoid that many national and regional standards will evolve, which in the end will hamper free market trade, making retesting against different standards for different markets necessary. Hence, international accepted standards will decrease cost and ease PV global market. PV GAP has established a set of rules which defines the approval for a PV GAP label, which will certify that this products meet quality issues. The World Bank has in a Press Release stated that they would recognise PV GAP labelled components or systems to meet their requirements for quality.
For more information on international standards or technical recommendations: