Available Facilities

• UCY Outdoor Facility

  Outdoor Testing

  

  Testing Capabilities

  • Cell and mini-module level testing: up to 10A, 25V, 25W (MPPT mode); up to 1–3A (Voc mode)
  • Measurement modes: MPPT (Perturb & Observe, Adaptive P&O, Divide & Conquer), OC, SC, fixed voltage, periodic I-V tracing
  • Also supports fixed current/power/resistance measurements, STC and NOCT testing
  • Devices mounted on fixed-plane arrays or two-axis solar trackers

  Environmental Monitoring

  • Meteorological sensors: temperature, rainfall, air pressure, humidity, aerosol optical depth, wind speed/direction
  • Irradiance sensors (incl. UV): DNI, GNI, GHI, GPOA, solar spectrum
  • Module temperature monitoring

  Quality Standards

  • Both indoor and outdoor labs follow ISO 17025 practices, with regular external audits

• UCY-AI Forecasting & Digital Twin Tool

  Virtual Acces

  

  Main purpose: PV generation forecasting, performance prediction, digital twin models, and some fault diagnosis/degradation analytics

  • Achieves <5% error for day- and hour-ahead forecasts using ML + statistical post-processing; validated globally across varied weather/PV configurations
  • Models rely on a single measured input (historical onsite power), combined with forecasted irradiance and temperature
  • Numerical weather predictions feed the trained model; day-ahead forecasts corrected via statistical post-processing, hour-ahead via sliding-window training with error vector correction
  • Deployed by EAC and TSOC to manage PV integration in Cyprus’s grid, avoiding high-voltage and reverse power flow issues

• UCY Indoor Facility

  Indoor Testing

  

  • Steady State Solar simulator:
    • Newport Oriel 3A, Class AAA with Xenon arc lamp
    • G2V Sunbrick LED solar

    both up to 20×20 cm with Peltier temperature controller (5–100°C)

  • EQE setup: spectral response for cells/mini-modules up to 3×3 cm
  • Luminescence imaging: Greateyes Lumisolar (EL/PL), 0.5×0.5 cm to 15×15 cm
  • Thermal diagnostics: Infratec PV-LIT lock-in thermography, up to 20×20 cm
  • Large-area testing: Pasan HighLIGHT SMT+ pulsed simulator (2024), I-V + EL for modules up to 2.8×1.6 m
  • LBIC mapping: InfinityPV system, up to 30×30 cm
  • Environmental chamber: damp-heat, humidity-freeze, thermal cycling (per IEC 61215)
  • Supports both commercial silicon panel certification and next-gen PV (perovskite, tandem) research; accessible via Ready-PV