Joint Research Centre (European Commission)

The European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) belongs to the Renewable Energy Unit (RE) of the Institute for Energy – of the Joint Research Centre. The Renewable Energy Unit is a European Centre of excellence in the field of Renewable Energy, and a major part of the work relating to Photovoltaic Solar Electricity is performed in the ESTI Laboratory. The ESTI facilities have been built up since 1977 and are one of the most advanced in Europe and are supported by a team of 25 specialised scientists, engineers and technicians. The JRC ESTI laboratory, has established a TYPE “A” Liaison with the International Electrotechnical Commission, it is an advisor to the IEC EE scheme on conformity assessment, and is a member and convenor of CENELEC. The JRC has conceived and contributed to numerous international standards in the field of photovoltaic performance. ESTI is an ISO17025 accredited laboratory for both “Measurement and Testing” and for “Calibration” of Photovoltaic devices. Concerning concentrator photovoltaics in particular a high precision module tracker with dedicated IV curve measurement hardware has recently been mounted in the outdoor test field in order to characterise concentrator systems. This will be used in the implementation of the test paths of the recently published standard IEC 62108 Concentrator Photovoltaic (PV) Receivers and Modules - Design Qualification and Type Approval. Work is also ongoing in the characterisation of MJ cells for concentrator applications.