Bengaluru: New lab to help solar industry

Bengaluru: UL, a leading global safety science company, on Tuesday announced the launch of a new laboratory to meet the growing demand of the Indian solar photovoltaic (PV) industry for testing and certification services as per the latest International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards.

UL created the new laboratory by investing in a skilled workforce and expansion of its existing solar PV laboratory in Bengaluru.

The new laboratory will help solar PV module manufacturers in India access local and global markets by providing testing and evaluation as per the 2016 editions of IEC as well as harmonised UL Standards and the UL Mark. The new laboratory also provides product evaluation under the International Electrotechnical Commission for Electrical Equipment Certification Body (IECEE CB) Scheme. UL can provide a combined test programme as per the earlier mentioned standards leading to cost-effectiveness.

The UL laboratory is already testing PV modules as per IS 14286: 2019 standard of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in support of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy programme. UL can extend the testing capability to solar PV manufacturers whenever the BIS introduces it as a technical regulation and upon receiving the necessary accreditation.

"We are committed to investing in building the necessary testing infrastructure and skilling of manpower to meet the ever-growing needs of the renewable energy industry. The new solar PV laboratory is a testament to this commitment as we look forward to supporting the industry with more resources in the short to long-term and contributing towards making it self-reliant. The laboratory will be part of our global network of state-of-the-art testing facilities that UL offers to its clients worldwide," said Suresh Sugavanam, Vice President and Managing Director of South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, UL.

"The solar PV module industry has grown quickly in the last few years attracting investments and leading to mushrooming of technologies. Companies such as UL have a role in complementing BIS's efforts in building the necessary testing capacity to support the rapid growth of the industry. UL's new laboratory is one such step to ramp up the capacity to test latest PV module technologies, reduce the time frame for testing and enable faster time-to-market for manufacturers by using digital twins and reference module requirements for new PV technologies. More importantly, as it is a modular laboratory, it can be expanded further according to the demand," added Dr Chakradhar Byreddy, Director for Renewables in Asia Pacific for UL.

"UL has been a trusted partner for us in our journey in becoming one of the top 15 solar manufacturers in the world. The end-to-end services they provide in testing, certification and advisory domains and the global renewable energy industry expertise they offer made it an easy choice for us to partner with them," said Vishanth Venkatesh, Head - Product Management, Solar-Manufacturing, Adani Solar.