Implementation of cost-effective wireless photovoltaic monitoring module at panel level

Abstract

Given the rapidly increasing market penetration of photovoltaic (PV) systems in many fields, including construction and housing, the effective maintenance of PV systems through remote monitoring at the panel level has attracted attention to quickly detect faults that cause reductions in yearly PV energy production, and which can reduce the whole-life cost. A key point of PV monitoring at the panel level is cost-effectiveness, as the installation of the massive PV panels that comprise PV systems is showing rapid growth in the market. This paper proposes an implementation method that involves the use of a panel-level wireless PV monitoring module (WPMM), and which assesses the cost-effectiveness of this approach. To maximize the cost-effectiveness, the designed WPMM uses a voltage-divider scheme for voltage metering and a shunt-resistor scheme for current metering. In addition, the proposed method offsets the effect of element errors by extracting calibration parameters. Furthermore, a design method is presented for portable and user-friendly PV monitoring, and demonstration results using a commercial 30-kW PV system are described.