Accuracy and reliability is essential in solar PV testing, and this means that you should maintain and calibrate your solar PV test equipment regularly. Ensuring that test results are accurate and can be relied upon enables us to confirm that the system:
- Has been installed safely and correctly
- Is able to perform to the design specification
- Is able to perform safely and to the design specification at periodic intervals during operation
Maintenance and calibration of test equipment may also be required to comply with external regulatory standards and internal quality standards, and also to ensure that a manufacturer’s warranty is valid. Meanwhile, maintenance and calibration also helps to extend the lifespan of the test equipment, and hence is important so that you get value for money from your test equipment.
Types of maintenance and calibration for solar PV test equipment
For certain electrical tests it is a requirement to confirm the calibration of test equipment before each test. This is essentially part of the testing process, while for other tests it is simply important to have accurate and reliable results, because we need to comply with regulatory standards and we base important verification decisions on these results.
Test equipment accuracy and reliability can drift over time, and we don’t know if this drift results in negligible change or significant change. Therefore we need to insist on 100% accuracy at all times, so that there can be no doubt, and no allowable error. And because popular types of solar PV test equipment are so versatile, they can be used regularly and in many different environments, and hence are subject to wear and tear, damage and component error.
There are three main types of regular maintenance you should carry out on solar PV test equipment to ensure reliability:
- Calibration – This could be carried out on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis, depending on the nature of usage, the critical nature of the measurements and any internal/external requirements. Calibration ensures accuracy and compliance of every result, because instruments can drift due to aging and environmental factors. Calibration is carried out using circuits with known readings and check standards.
- Inspect and clean – This should include the cleaning of ports, probes, connections and other components of your test equipment. Dust and dirt can build-up to prevent secure connections for leads and probes, and impact on the sensitivity of sensors, and this will interfere with the accuracy of your readings. You should also visually inspect instruments for signs of wear and tear, damage and loose connections.
- Software updates – Some instruments may require periodical software updates to ensure they are installed with the very latest version. Updates can include new features, bug fixes and safety patches, which can be important in the instrument being able to comply with the latest standards and to maintain accuracy and reliability going forward.
You should have a maintenance and calibration schedule set-up for each of your individual test instruments, which reflects the critical nature of its results and the environment it is used in. If you adhere to this schedule you should be able to verify that test results for your solar PV system are 100% accurate and reliable. Check out the full range of solar PV test equipment supplied by Test Instrument Solutions.