Remote Monitoring for Solar Photovoltaic Systems in Rural Application Using GSM Voice Channel

Abstract The health of the Solar PV systems should be monitored continuously for their better performance and maintenance. For PV systems installed at rural locations, remote monitoring capabilities provide the information in advance when system performance is degraded or is likely to fail. Based on this information, preventive maintenance can be carried out to improve the performance and life of the system, thereby reducing the overall operating cost. Advantages and disadvantages of several monitoring systems for rural application, based on the techniques of communication, such as, computer to computer communication (Ethernet), embedded system to computer (GSM) and embedded system to embedded system (GSM, GPRS) are discussed. A new technique is proposed as a solution to overcome the limitations of other techniques. The proposed technique uses GSM voice channel for the communication of data, in the form of analog signal between transmitter and receiver. In order to study and evaluate the performance of proposed technique, various experiments have been performed and impact of parameters like shape (sine, square and triangular), frequency (50 - 4000 Hz) and amplitude (0 – 6 V) of analog signal have been studied. It is observed that sine wave of frequency from 300 Hz to 3300 Hz with 4.5 V maximum amplitude can be sent on voice channel of GSM network with less than 1% error. This technique has low initial as well as operating cost. The GSM network is readily available in rural areas; this technique can be used easily.