Accelerated life testing (ALT) qualification for photovoltaic grid-tied commercial inverter equipment

Accelerated life testing (ALT) is a method of validating product reliability in a short time period of weeks or months through application of stresses much higher than a product would experience in ordinary operation. ALT can find dominant failure mechanisms and is often used when wear-out failure is involved. In addition, ALT methods can serve as qualification criteria to prescribed lifetime confidence limits.