In part 3 of CEA's solar module microcracks series, CEA's VP of Technology, Paul Wormser explains the risks of having undetected microcracks in a solar project.

Video Transcript

Microcracks, these tiny cracks that are in the wafers can grow. A small microcrack - something that you can't see with the naked eye - eventually grows into a larger crack. And while module manufacturers take great steps to avoid creating the microcrack to begin with, and they take great steps to make solar cells designed so that if a microcrack were to grow, it won't have a serious impact.

Unfortunately, the reality is that microcracks are common, they grow, and they don't always grow in a way that's benign. Sometimes they grow in a way that causes a large area of an individual cell to be isolated from the cell circuit. And when this happens, the remaining part of the cell that is in the circuit can go into what's called reverse bias.

In this case, that part of the cell can get warm. And once it gets warm, it can get hot. And once it gets too hot, there can be permanent damage. And that permanent damage not only can cause a loss in the energy production of the asset, and the developer would be very concerned about that.

But in the extreme it can actually cause catastrophic failure where the glass on the module may break or in terrible cases, in unfortunate cases, the heat that's generated by this cell that's in reverse bias can be so high that a fire can be caused.

View Part 4, The Causes Solar Module Microcracks During Manufacturing here.