Experimental investigation of hotspot phenomenon in PV arrays under mismatch conditions

Ghosh, Swatilekha; Singh, Santosh Kumar; Yadav, Vinod Kumar

doi:10.1016/j.solener.2023.02.033

Cited by 17 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Bakir [166] used an infrared imaging detection technique where he attached thermal cameras to a drone to be flown over three solar plants that ranged between 2 and 3.5 MW. One of the plants had three PV modules with failed bypass diodes and as a result, their operating temperature increased by an average of 19.7 C. It was shown by Ghosh et al [167] that the operating temperature of PV cells undergoing shading failure decreases by nearly 50% when bypass diodes are functioning. Their experimental study aimed to explore if total cross-tied (TCT) array configurations were effective in preventing hotspots by allowing the bypass diodes to respond promptly in cases of shading.…”

Section: Junction Box and Bypass Diodesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Photovoltaic Module Failure and Degradation Mechanisms: Causes and Detection Techniques

Al Mahdi,

Leahy,

Alghoul

et al. 2024

Solar

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With the global increase in the deployment of photovoltaic (PV) modules in recent years, the need to explore and understand their reported failure mechanisms has become crucial. Despite PV modules being considered reliable devices, failures and extreme degradations often occur. Some degradations and failures within the normal range may be minor and not cause significant harm. Others may initially be mild but can rapidly deteriorate, leading to catastrophic accidents, particularly in harsh environments. This paper conducts a state-of-the-art literature review to examine PV failures, their types, and their root causes based on the components of PV modules (from protective glass to junction box). It outlines the hazardous consequences arising from PV module failures and describes the potential damage they can bring to the PV system. The literature reveals that each component is susceptible to specific types of failure, with some components deteriorating on their own and others impacting additional PV components, leading to more severe failures. Finally, this review briefly summarises PV failure detection techniques, emphasising the significance of electrical characterisation techniques and underlining the importance of considering more electrical parameters. Most importantly, this review identifies the most prevalent degradation processes, laying the foundation for further investigation by the PV research community through modelling and experimental studies. This allows for early detection by comparing PV performance when failures or degradation occur to prevent serious progression. It is worth noting that most of the studies included in this review primarily focus on detailing failures and degradation observed in PV operations, which can be attributed to various factors, including the manufacturing process and other external influences. Hence, they provide explanations of these failure mechanisms and causes but do not extensively explore corrective actions or propose solutions based on either laboratory experiments or real-world experience. Although, within this field of study, there are corresponding studies that have designed experiments to suggest preventive measures and potential solutions, an in-depth review of those studies is beyond the scope of this paper. However, this paper, in turn, serves as a valuable resource for scholars by confining PV failures to critically evaluate available studies for preventative measures and corrective actions.

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Section: Junction Box and Bypass Diodesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Photovoltaic Module Failure and Degradation Mechanisms: Causes and Detection Techniques

Al Mahdi,

Leahy,

Alghoul

et al. 2024

Solar

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Bakir [163] used an infrared imaging detection technique where he attached the thermal cameras to a drone to be flown over three solar plants that range between 2 and 3.5 MW. One of the plants has three PV modules with failed bypass diodes and as a result, their operating temperature increased by an average of 19.7 C. It was shown by Ghosh et al [164] that the operating temperature of the PV cell undergoes shading failure decreased by nearly 50% when bypass diodes are functioning. Their experimental study aimed to explore if total cross-tied (TCT) array configurations is effective in preventing hotspot by allowing the bypass diodes to respond promptly in case of shading.…”

Section: Junction Box and Bypass Diodesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Photovoltaic Failure and Degradation Mechanisms

Al Mahdi,

Leahy,

Alghoul

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

With the global increase of photovoltaic (PV) modules deployment in recent years, the need to explore and realize their reported failure mechanisms has become crucial. Despite PV modules being considered reliable devices, failures and extreme degradations often occur. Some degradations and failures can be minor and cause no critical harm if within the expected range. Others, may start mildly and then deteriorate faster to become catastrophic, especially in harsh environments. This paper conducts a state-of-the-art literature review to scan PV failures, types, and their root cause based on PV’s constructed components (from protective glass to junction-box). It outlines the hazardous consequences beyond PV module failures, describing what harm they can bring to the PV system. As we delve into the literature, it becomes clear that every component is vulnerable to certain types of failures; some can deteriorate within themselves, and others infect further PV components resulting in emerging more severe failures. In the end, the review briefly summarises PV failure detection techniques, emphasising electrical characterization techniques, and disclosing the need to engage more electrical parameters. Most importantly, this review can prepare the stage for the PV research community to identify the most prevalent degradation processes. This, in turn, encourages researchers to investigate them throughout modelling and experimental studies to forecast them at the early onset in order to protect the PV systems from hazardous malfunctions.

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“…The most important installation scenarios for distributed PVs are around the electricity users, such as roofs and building surfaces [7][8][9][10][11], which are more prone to being covered than centralized PVs in open and remote areas. Covering from objects such as bird droppings [12,13], leaves [14], dust [15,16], and passing clouds [17][18][19] are often unavoidable. Covered cells not only have a degraded output power but also give significant output power loss over the entire module or even the array through the series-parallel amplification effect [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mechanism of the Semi-Transparent Coverings Affecting the Power Generation Capacity of the Photovoltaic Module and Array

Li,

Liu,

Liu

et al. 2024

Energies

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Shading on photovoltaic (PV) modules due to shadows, covering, dust, etc., usually characterized as semi-transparent, will significantly affect the power generation capacity. No systematic study has considered the impact of semi-transparent coverings on the power generation capacity of PV modules. This paper covers a single cell in the PV module using a covering with a transmittance of 18.55% and systematically investigates its impact on the power generation capacity. The open-circuit voltage (Voc) of the PV module is nearly unaffected by semi-transparent coverings because the covered cell can be considered as working at a lower irradiance and thus can output a voltage close to that of the uncovered cell. The short-circuit current (Isc) is significantly affected by coverings because it is co-contributed by the photocurrent (evaluated based on the covering ratio R and transmittance) and the reverse bias current ΔIsc (the covered cell is in a reverse bias state). The ΔIsc increases with R because more charge accumulates at the bi-ends of the covered cell; but, it decreases at full covering, which implies that in a partially covered case the uncovered part contributes more to ΔIsc than the covered part. The fill factor (FF) of the PV module first increases and then decreases with R, as the equivalent resistance of the covered cell increases rapidly with R, which replaces the wire resistance in dominating the series resistance of the PV module when R > 0.6. This work is of great theoretical significance in analyzing the output characteristics of PV modules under real conditions.

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Experimental investigation of hotspot phenomenon in PV arrays under mismatch conditions

Cited by 17 publications

References 31 publications

A Review of Photovoltaic Module Failure and Degradation Mechanisms: Causes and Detection Techniques

A Review of Photovoltaic Module Failure and Degradation Mechanisms: Causes and Detection Techniques

A Review of Photovoltaic Failure and Degradation Mechanisms

The Mechanism of the Semi-Transparent Coverings Affecting the Power Generation Capacity of the Photovoltaic Module and Array

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