Tom Betts is a senior lecturer in the Applied Photovoltaics Research Group of the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology within the department’s Energy Division. His research areas include the development of indoor and outdoor PV module characterisation techniques and environmental modelling of factors influencing PV module efficiency under real operation.
Current research activities focus on the harmonisation of PV module characterisation at European level, long term durability of PV modules, monitoring of large scale grid-connected PV systems and the application of these themes to system lifetime energy yield prediction.
Dr Betts maintains the continuous, long term outdoor PV monitoring facility on the department roof, comprising a number of meteorological, module- and system-level measurement systems and has an interest in measurement uncertainty, data quality and exploratory statistical techniques for data mining from large databases.
Expertise includes: Solar spectroradiometry, Calibration of photovoltaic reference cells and modules, Determination of PV device peak power and efficiency, Monitoring technologies for PV device field operation and energy yield, Modelling of solar radiation and PV device output, Indoor characterisation techniques for PV device optimisation.
