A COMPREHENSIVE MONITORING SYSTEM FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAYS

摘要

With increased adoption of renewable energy, more effectivernarray management strategies are needed. Many arraysrnare located in remote locations, where faults within the arrayrnoften go unnoticed and unattended for large periods ofrntime. Technicians sent to rectify the faults must spend arnlarge amount of time determining the location of the faultrnmanually. Automated monitoring systems are needed tornobtain the information about the performance of the arrayrnand detect faults. Such systems must monitor the DC sidernof the array in addition to the AC side to identify non catastrophicrnfaults. In this paper, a prototype comprehensivernmonitoring system is presented for management of utilityscalernPV installations. The system continuously monitorsrnand logs the performance and condition of the array andrnprovides a variety of data visualization and reporting functionalityrnto the facility operator.