Report: Photovoltaics Field Trial

Study to look at the design, construction, commissioning and performance of PV systems at 28 housing schemes.

The PV Domestic Field Trial (DFT) was the largest PV monitoring effort within the UK starting in 1999 and finishing in 2007. Groups of domestic buildings were monitored through all phases of design, building integration, commissioning and operation.  This has allowed information to be collected on buildability, reliability, maintainability and PV performance under real UK climate and operating conditions. This extensive data from nearly 500 PV installations was used to refine guidelines for monitoring work, to improve the design of PV systems, to develop best practice guidelines, as well as inform policy decision makers. It also provided accessible examples of a wide range of domestic PV installations for various sectors, i.e. the general public, planning authorities, construction professionals and electricity network providers. Internationally, the IEA PVPS programme (https://www.iea-pvps.org/) added the results to its PV system performance database.

Please use the link on the right to download the full 9MB report.