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Headquartered in Athens, the company also offers PV construction. Since 2019 they have built 230 plants with 145MW of capacity. MainTech is well positioned to observe differences in energy output across the range of modules they work with, all year as well as at the height of summer.
The data are in: Comparing energy output in extreme heat
Following the summer of 2022, MainTech analysed the performance of modules in similar installations within the same geographical area. 500kW and 1MW installations owned by the same customer and outfitted with other brands provided one example: these produced less than 1.500kWh/kW per year.
In the same area, under the same conditions, plants where MainTech had installed LONGi modules generated between 1.550 and 1.590 kWh/kW per year. With an ambient temperature of more than 40 degrees Celsius, the peak kW for LONGi bifacial modules was 5% more than the peak with other panels.
“After we showed customers the difference in energy production, they ordered 100MW more of the LONGi modules,” says MainTech’s lead engineer Michalis Theofanopoulos. “The most notable thing is that once customers use LONGi, particularly after having three or four other brands installed previously, they never ask for other ones again.”
The firm has been installing modules from LONGi, now the largest solar panel manufacturer in the world, since 2020.
Testing for higher temperatures in the future climate
As more regions of the globe are experiencing extreme heat waves with greater frequency, solar modules are subjected to higher operating temperatures, for longer periods. LONGi put its most advanced product, the Hi-MO 5 high-efficiency module, through the most stringent thresher thermal cycling procedures available (defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as 62892:2019 and TS 63126:2020). The Hi-MO 5 module completed the tests, withstanding higher than standard temperatures and longer cycles. |
