Consortium style study on the development of highly reliable photovoltaic modules and acceleration test methods: — Management of the “Consortium Study on Fabrication and Characterization of Solar Cell Modules with Long Life and High Reliability” —@@@―⌈高信頼性太陽電池モジュール開発・評価コンソーシアム⌋の運営―

−42− Synthesiology English edition Vol.9 No.1 pp.42-54 (Jun. 2016) chemical and material companies that manufacture the module materials, along with the wide-ranging knowledge of physics, chemistry, electrical and electronic engineering, material science, and others. Therefore, the Research Center for Photovoltaics (this research unit changed its name to Research Center for Photovoltaic Technologies, and then changed its name back to Research Center for Photovoltaics) at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (hereinafter will be called AIST) established a consortium mainly composed of the chemical and material manufacturers that were involved or were planning to enter into the photovoltaic industry. The plan was to promote R&D through close collaboration with the photovoltaic companies, and preparations were started at the Research Center from the latter half of fiscal year (FY) 2008. In 2008, when the consortium was planned, there was no university or public research institute that could engage in trial production and evaluation of photovoltaic modules in Japan, and verification of effectiveness for the module materials could only be accomplished by sending personnel or materials to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fh-G ISE) in Germany or the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN). Therefore, there were demands from the chemical and material manufacturers to set up a trial production and evaluation line in Japan. Of course, tests could be done at the Japanese photovoltaic companies, but in many cases, the conditions were not favorable for the chemical and material manufacturers, because the photovoltaic companies 1 Background of the establishment of the consortium