Reliability of IR-imaging of PV-plants under operating conditions

Buerhop, Cl.; Schlegel, David J.; Nieß, M.; Vodermayer, C.; Weißmann, R.; Brabec, Christoph J.

doi:10.1016/j.solmat.2012.07.011

Cited by 153 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Investigation about novel monitoring methods is again a crucial issue in the solar energy market growth [10].…”

Section: Typical Methods For Defects and Failures Detection On Pvmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, this method can be performed during normal operation of PV systems and it does not need to shut down the plant. The main task of thermographic measurement is to find the defects or failures under temperature distribution of module surface [10]. Generally, the IR imaging camera works in a wavelength range between 8 and 14 µm, and test procedure must be performed in low external temperature, wind and under clear sky with at least irradiation of 700 W/m 2 on the modules.…”

Section: B Thermographic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Innovative Automated Control System for PV Fields Inspection and Remote Control

Aghaei

Grimaccia

Gonano

et al. 2015

IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.

136

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Abstract-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming a reliable and useful instrument in monitoring and diagnostic services in the energy field. Operation and maintenance is a crucial factor for PV plant inspection and control activities which currently are quite hard to be performed due to manual and dispersive procedures. The automation of the monitoring techniques will become in future an essential task in this market and Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) technology can play a role in it. This paper proposes a novel, comprehensive and innovative approach in order to automate the inspection and prognostic procedure by means of designing a control system in order to provide accurate information on operating conditions of PV plants. The system is able to perform PV systems' monitoring, diagnosis, defects and failures reconnaissance, data processing and to propose remedial actions. In current experimental research, only IR sensor imaging was examined to evaluate thermographic behavior of the PV modules and to build the related image processing algorithm. However, it is possible to easily extend such a procedure in order to manage a larger amount of data. First results of this work have proven that the proposed procedure is very promising being fast, cost effective and adaptable to large PV plants which can be controlled during their entire lifetime.

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“…Investigation about novel monitoring methods is again a crucial issue in the solar energy market growth [10].…”

Section: Typical Methods For Defects and Failures Detection On Pvmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Thermographic Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovative Automated Control System for PV Fields Inspection and Remote Control

Aghaei

Grimaccia

Gonano

et al. 2015

IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron.

136

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Moreover, the PVPM measurement range is 0-1000 V and 0-20 A, allowing string measurements and checks. Thus, applying the algorithm described in [34,35], the STC I-V curve is obtained. Furthermore, all measurements were taken with global irradiance on the generator plane greater than 800 W/m 2 and deviations lower than 1%.…”

Section: Measurement Procedures and Equipmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a GIS Tool for High Precision PV Degradation Monitoring and Supervision: Feasibility Analysis in Large and Small PV Plants

et al. 2017

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Abstract:It is well known that working photovoltaic (PV) plants show several maintenance needs due to wiring and module degradation, mismatches, dust, and PV cell defects and faults. There are a wide range of theoretical studies as well as some laboratory tests that show how these circumstances may affect the PV production. Thus, it is mandatory to evaluate the whole PV plant performance and, then, its payback time, profitability, and environmental impact or carbon footprint. However, very few studies include a systematic procedure to quantify and supervise the real degradation effects and fault impacts on the field. In this paper, the authors first conducted a brief review of the most frequent PV faults and the degradation that can be found under real conditions of operation of PV plants. Then, they proposed and developed an innovative Geographic Information System (GIS) application to locate and supervise them. The designed tool was applied to both a large PV plant of 108 kWp and a small PV plant of 9 kWp installed on a home rooftop. For the large PV plant, 24 strings of PV modules were modelized and introduced into the GIS application and every module in the power plant was studied including voltage, current, power, series and parallel resistances, fill factor, normalized PV curve to standard test conditions (STC), thermography and visual analysis. For the small PV installation three strings of PV panels were studied identically. It must be noted that PV modules in this case included power optimizers. The precision of the study enabled the researchers to locate and supervise up to a third part of every PV cell in the system, which can be adequately georeferenced. The developed tool allows both the researchers and the investors to increase control of the PV plant performance, to lead to better planning of maintenance actuations, and to evaluate several PV module replacement strategies in a preventive maintenance program. The PV faults found include hot spots, snail tracks, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) discoloration, PV cell fractures, busbar discoloration, bubbles and Si discoloration.

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“…Moreover, the PVPM measurement range is 0-1000 V and 0-20 A, that allows string measurements and checks. Thus, applying the algorithm described in [34,35] the STC I-V curve is obtained. Furthermore, all measurements have been taken with global irradiance on the generator plane greater than 800 W/m 2 and deviations lower than 1%.…”

Section: Figure 5 -Instantaneous Access To a Pv Module Frontal Thermomentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of a GIS Tool for a High Precision PV Degradation Monitoring and Supervision: Feasibility Analysis in Large and Small PV Plants

Simón-Martín¹,

Diez-Suárez²,

Prado³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract:It is well known that working PV plants show several maintenance needs due to wiring and modules degradation, mismatches, dust and PV cells defects and faults. There are a wide range of studies that show the theoretical and some laboratory tests of how these circumstances may affect the PV production. Thus, it results mandatory to evaluate the whole PV plant performance and, then, it's payback time, profitability and environmental impact or carbon footprint. However, very few studies include a systematic procedure to quantify and supervise the real degradation effects and faults impacts on the field. In this paper, the authors first conduct a brief review of the most frequent PV faults and degradation that can be found on real conditions operative PV Plants. Then, they propose and develop an innovative Geographic Information System application to locate and supervise them. The designed tool has been applied to either a large PV plant of 108 kWp and a small PV plant of just 9 kWp installed on a home rooftop. For the large PV plant, 24 strings of PV modules have been modelized and introduced into the GIS application and every module in the power plant has been studied including voltage, current, power, series and parallel resistance, fill factor, normalized PV curve to STC, thermography and visual analysis. For the small PV installation 3 strings of PV panels have been studied identically. It must be noticed that PV modules in this case include power optimizers. The precision of the study allows the researchers to locate and supervise up to a third part of every PV cell in the system, which are adequately georreferenciated. The developed tool allows both the researchers and the investors to increase control on the PV plant performance and conducts to a better planification of maintenance actuations and to evaluate several PV modules replacement strategies in a preventive maintenance programme. Found PV faults include hot spots, snail tracks, EVA discoloration, PV cells fractures, busbars discoloration, bubbles and Si discoloration.

show abstract

Reliability of IR-imaging of PV-plants under operating conditions

Cited by 153 publications

References 3 publications

Innovative Automated Control System for PV Fields Inspection and Remote Control

Innovative Automated Control System for PV Fields Inspection and Remote Control

Development of a GIS Tool for High Precision PV Degradation Monitoring and Supervision: Feasibility Analysis in Large and Small PV Plants

Development of a GIS Tool for a High Precision PV Degradation Monitoring and Supervision: Feasibility Analysis in Large and Small PV Plants

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