Our systems consist of high quality, state of the art components, which are based on Dr. Buecher's 37 years of experience in designing photovoltaic measurement equipment.
Our systems are in use by various testing and calibration laboratories which are certified to ISO 17025.
In order to recognise exceptional contributions to the standardisation of Photovoltaic Measurements, Dr. Buecher, the managing director and lead developer of Optosolar, has been awarded the IEC 1906 award from the International Electrotechnical Commission(see DKE Verleihung IEC 1906 Award, IEC 1906 award recipients 2011 and IEC 1906 award criteria, )
Prior to founding Optosolar, Dr. Buecher has been the head of the photovoltaic calibration laboratory at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) in Freiburg, Germany, for many years.
This is one of the major PV calibration laboratories in the world (together with NREL, ASU, ESTI, AIST etc.). At the calibration laboratory, together with his co-workers, he developed measurement technology for both solar cells (single, tandem, concentration, MJ, TPV, photoelectrochemical etc) and PV modules, and researched on ways for energy rating of PV devices.
Together with Physikalische Technische Bundesanstalt, PTB (German National Institute of Standards), he did research on PV measurements, cell testing, module testing, traceability to National Units etc.
More that 40 international publications on measurement technology and measurement precision show his broad range of work in Photovoltaic Measurements.
This research on measurement technology, measurement procedures and highest precision measurement equipment is, today, reflected in Optosolar's high quality products. Optosolar offers both standard, state of the art measurement products and consulting and research work on new materials and measurement problems.
In addition, Dr. Buecher is a German representative into Working Group 2 of the Technical Committee 82 of the IEC since 1995.
This committee is responsible for the formulation of the relevant international standards for measurements in Photovoltaics.
These are:
IEC 60904-9 for solar simulators, IEC 60904-8, -7 for spectral response and spectral mismatch correction, IEC 60904-1 for photovoltaic IV measurements, IEC 60904-4 for traceability of measurements to National Units, IEC 60904-2 for photovoltaic reference elements - reference cells and reference modules, IEC 61215 and IEC 61646 (thin films), defining the measurement conditions STC = standard test conditions and other module measurements, next to environmental testing, IEC 60904-3 defining the reference spectrum AM 1.5, the IEC 61853 series describing approaches for energy rating of PV modules, and IEC 60904-10 defining measurements for the linearity of PV devices.