Quality assurance remains a top priority as the global off-grid solar market continues to evolve and deliver energy services to more households and businesses. According to GOGLA findings, global sales of lighting products (solar lanterns, multi-light systems and solar home systems) in 2021 reached almost 7.5 million units. Eight governments have adopted mandatory quality standards to protect their markets and consumers from low-quality products (IEC TS 62257-9-8).

Conformity assessment is the activity of verifying that a standard or technical specification was applied in the design, manufacturing, installation, maintenance or repair of a device or system. It is an effective means of preventing low-quality products from entering the market. To help Pre-Export Verification of Conformity (PVoC) and import control authorities effectively determine product’s compliance with standards, we developed a presentation deck with an overview of the conformity assessment process.

The deck covers the following:

• Introduction to Conformity Assessment
• Difference between IEC TS 62257-9-5 and IEC TS 62257-9-8
• IEC TS 62257-9-8: Quality Standards for OGS products
• PVoC process for OGS products
• Introduction to VeraSol QA framework
• How VeraSol supports the PVoC process
• Guide to assessing test reports for conformity with IEC TS 62257-9-8