Online I-V Tracer for per string monitoring and maintenance of PV panels

Joglekar, AV and Hegde, B (2018) Online I-V Tracer for per string monitoring and maintenance of PV panels. In: 44th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, IECON 2018, 20-23 October 2018, Washington, pp. 1890-1894.

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Abstract

Large scale solar photovoltaic plants need to be monitored regularly for determining location and type of fault, cleaning schedules, operating point and performance. We propose a circuit that sits at the junction box level to provide 'on demand', 'online' I-V traces for series connected panels. This sparse sensing approach works on a per string basis and is therefore economical. The proposed online I-V tracer topology does not require the plant to be brought offline to obtain the I-V trace. The load's power requirement is met during the trace. The shape of the I-V trace helps determine the type of fault and localizes the fault to a specific string. The proposed solution has been tested in a practical field deployment. An analytics engine is also being developed to use the recorded I-V curve to provide optimal cleaning schedules, fault diagnosis and maintenance alerts.

Item Type:	Conference Paper
Publication:	Proceedings: IECON 2018 - 44th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society
Publisher:	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Keywords:	Condition monitoring; Electric network topology; Failure analysis; Industrial electronics; Photovoltaic cells; Solar concentrators; Solar energy; Solar power generation; Topology, Cleaning schedules; I - V curve; I-V tracers; Operating points; Power requirement; Series-connected; Solar panels; Solar photovoltaic plants, Fault detection
Department/Centre:	Division of Interdisciplinary Sciences > Robert Bosch Centre for Cyber Physical Systems
Date Deposited:	28 Jul 2022 10:31
Last Modified:	28 Jul 2022 10:31
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/75035

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