CNPV, routinely supplies their solar PV modules with a positive tolerance based upon the solar PV modules rating label. Their historical written commitment has been to provide modules with a +/- tolerance as is common industry practice. The previous written commitment has a wider tolerance than their operational activities and is, therefore, being repositioned to reflect their ongoing commitment to provide increased value for large area modules.  

Bypina Veerraju Chaudary, CNPVs COO explained in greater detail, "As a result of a more stringent, tighter tolerance cell selection process, our module production delivers three key elements of major benefit to our customers; the cell power balancing for module longevity and increased harvesting ability, the module balancing for additional power gains in the order of 2%, and the ability to always supply at least the value of the invoiced power rating. Our focus on delivering improved benefit in these and other areas has ensured that we have always provided the positive aspects of these topics. As of November 28 2011, we have broken from the industry standard and formalized our position that all modules will be of equal or greater power output than the rating label up to a maximum of 3%. Within this +3% tolerance, we have a further segregation of power outputs; we carry out sub-binning based upon the Imp (maximum power current), to ensure that each module is within 1% of its collective neighbors within the pallet. And finally, our primary binning, for cell selection, utilizes a greater sorting ratio than our competitors, which ensures that each individual modules cells are balanced with a significantly higher tolerance reduction. Tighter tolerance has a major impact on the power harvesting and longevity in real world applications and is independently shown to be a major benefit to the customer’s goals of profit generation."

There is a counterintuitive element to this feature, sometimes based on individuals perception that a bigger number is a bigger benefit. In the case of positive power tolerance this is not the case. A -3%+3% tolerance has a 6% potential variation. By utilizing 1% sub-binning for the modules, the latent module mismatch within the pallet/string is reduced from 6% to 1% with a resultant net effect of a 2% gain on power harvesting.

CNPV modules will continue to be supplied in line with their strategy of providing the largest possible financial gain for the capital invested when utilizing crystalline photovoltaic technology. The formalization of the positive tolerance process warrants that as of November 1, 2011, all modules leaving CNPVs manufacturing facility are contractually ensured to encompass the three positive gains noted.