SEMA Announces Speakers for Its 1st Technical Conference and Exhibition

The event will include training courses as well as a technical conference and exhibition. The technical conference will review the reliability issues associated with PV modules based on a new SEMA reliability report written by Robert Schwenke of SciTech Consultants, Kurt Scott of Atlas, and Dr. Dasgupta Das and Professor Patrick McCluskie of the University of CALCE inMaryland. The conference also will feature input from the SEMA membership and various industry research and development groups. The report will be available for free to conference attendees and SEMA members.

Speakers, including Allen Zielnik of Atlas, will review industry programs that  address long-term module reliability implications with a discussion on understanding and determining the reliability of PV modules over their 25-year lifetime.

David Torp of IPC, along with other respected industry experts, will discuss existing and emerging solar standards during the standards  session of the conference. This session also will include a review of gaps in standards as well as the challenges and development of international quality standards. Inverter and microinverter reliability issues and roadmaps/future trends, as well as the INEMI roadmap for PV will be presented by the session's speakers, one of these being Wayne Chang from Pivotry Consultancy. Additionally, PV module manufacturing leaders from Flextronics and Celestica will present module and manufacturing issues.

The outlook for the global solar industry will be discussed by industry experts Paula Mints from Navigant, Philip Heinz from Prismark and Jon Custer-Topai from Custer Consulting. Finally, speakers including Matthew Holzmann from Christopher Assocates will review hazards for modules, including fire, warranty, theft and traceability.
  
In addition to the training courses and technical conferences, there will be an exhibition consisting of many leading companies in the solar industry.