BOULDER, Colo.—BrightSpot Automation recently signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with funding assistance from West Gate, a DOE Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program sponsored by the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office. Under the CRADA, BrightSpot will work with NREL researchers on UV fluorescence (UVF) imaging of defects in solar panels and machine learning for automated inspection of UVF and electroluminescence (EL) defect images. “We are excited to be working with world-class NREL researchers and to have access to the wide array of fielded solar panels and environmental-chamber-tested panels on which to demonstrate the power of UVF defect imaging,” says Andrew Gabor, CTO of BrightSpot. Steve Johnston, senior research scientist at NREL will be coordinating the NREL work in collaboration with BrightSpot. “UVF shows great potential for low-cost, solar-panel characterization and provides complementary information to the common techniques of EL and thermal IR imaging,” Johnson says. “Due to the high-throughput nature of UVF, automated inspection of the results becomes a necessity. We look forward to helping BrightSpot expand its product portfolio and to educating the PV community on these important topics.” With offices in Colorado and Massachusetts, BrightSpot Automation sells testing equipment worldwide throughout the entire PV value chain including R&D, product development, manufacturing, lab testing, field testing, and recycling. Products include Electroluminescence, Photoluminescence, UV Fluorescence, and Contact Resistivity. Learn more about BrightSpot Automation.
