SERMA Group
SERMA Group is a consultancy and expertise company specialised in embedded and industrial electronic systems, as well as information system security.
ID: 967240236794-10
Lobbying Activity
Response to EU Solar Energy Communication
10 Mar 2022
Thanks to our involvement on the search of the root cause of failed photovoltaic (PV) installations, we think that rules before the installation and during the running of a PV installation need to become more severe. Firstly, a deep control of the installation should be required before to start it (quality of crimping, test with a thermal camera). After that, once the installation is running, rules such as deep regular controls should exist at minimum but it might not be enough to run an optimise PV installation for 10-15 years.
In their study, Pascual et al. (Prog Photovolt Res Appl. 2021, 29, 1294) have noticed that, for one photovoltaic (PV) installation, various rate of degradation of the PV modules were observed. According to our experience in construction analysis, root cause analysis and failure analysis, one minor defect on one PV module could become dramatic for the full installation and, thus for the user, the amount of produced energy will decrease below the expectation. Similarly to other systems such as batteries and electronics, it is then crucial to push the PV community to support the development of health monitoring and prognostic health management tools on PV installation to help the PV user to optimise its system and make it safer. To improve the different mathematical models for the prognostic health management, the creation of a huge common database could support the development of optimised PV installation
Read full responseResponse to Modernising the EU’s batteries legislation
1 Jul 2020
The actual effort for supporting the fabrication of Li-ion cell in EU is making sense from economical and resources aspects only if a proper waste management plan is set. In their study, Gaines et al. (“key issues for Li-ion battery recycling” MRS Energy & Sustainability: A review journal p1-14, 2018) estimated that, with a proper recycling protocol and different policies, it would be possible to answer to the full demand in Li-ion batteries (LiBs) with recycled materials coming from old LiBs at the end of the 21st century.
At SERMA Group, through the SERMA Technologies entity, we are performing abusive testing from cell level to pack level. Despite our company is not directly involved in the recycling of batteries, we are facing the problem about transportation of abused/strongly aged batteries. The present ADR regulation is setting the rules about road transportation. Depending on the state of the battery, different ways of packaging are required. A clear distinction is made for batteries considered as damaged and not damaged (UN38.3 supposed failure). However, it is not clear about the distinction between a damaged battery which can be dangerous (requirement of P911 packaging) or not (requirement of P908 packaging). Actually, the evaluation of the danger has a degree of freedom in the regulations since it is the owner of the battery who takes the decision.
Therefore, we believe that this evaluation needs to be supervised or a standard checklist needs to be set in order to help the owner in deciding about the hazardous nature of the battery. Moreover, we are rising the inconsistency about the transport of identified damaged batteries which present a risk of explosion/fire during the transport. More effort should be done in performing a step of neutralisation of the battery and different protocols have to be set at EU level.
An update about the transportation rules is then mandatory because an accident during a transport might negatively impact the opinion of the population about the LiBs technology.
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