Detailed infrared diagnostics of photovoltaic panels for higher safety and optimal energy generation

Abstract

The Photovoltaic (PV) systems are one of the key renewable energy sources that are becoming increasingly popular, but they still have many drawbacks compared to conventional energy sources. Their main disadvantages are that they require a lot of installation space and they have low investment return ration. Both could be overcome by local installation of the PV plants as close as possible to the end consumer, and the best case is the PV panels to be installed on the buildings, but this could lead to higher fire risk for the residents. Different PV panels degrade with different speeds and work under slightly different conditions. These problems require at least periodic PV panel diagnostics and the thermal infrared (IR) inspection seems to be the best solution. The prerequisites for correct IR diagnostics are presented. One of the requirements for detailed IR inspection is the thermal camera to capture each PV cell with at least 5 by 5 pixels in horizontal and vertical directions. A methodology for pixel size calculation and IR monitoring system design is developed and presented in this work.