Electrical Faults in Photovoltaic Modules: Analysis, Characterization and Detection

Photovoltaic (PV) modules are installed in the field to deliver possible maximum power to the load. However, the PV modules encounter various electrical faults during operation that results in severe power loss, failure and performance degradation of the system. Also, the lack of fault knowledge among the PV manufacturer and installers has resulted in severe accidents and fire hazards in some cases. The scope of this paper covers the description on various electrical faults, their occurrence and impact on the performance of PV modules. The faults include interconnect and connection faults, bridge and earth faults, shunt path development faults and mismatch faults that commonly occurs in the field-installed PV systems. The effect of these electrical faults on the equivalent circuit and characteristics curves of the PV modules has been studied using MATLAB/Simulink. The analysis presented clearly indicates the adverse effect of these faults in the power generation and performance of the PV modules. Also, a short survey on various fault detection techniques proposed in the literatures has been done.

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