Diagnostic method for photovoltaic systems based on six layer detection algorithm

Abstract This work proposes a fault detection algorithm based on the analysis of the theoretical curves which describe the behaviour of an existing grid-connected photovoltaic (GCPV) plant. For a given set of working conditions, solar irradiance and PV modules’ temperature, a number of attributes such as voltage ratio (VR) and power ratio (PR) are simulated using virtual instrumentation (VI) LabVIEW software. Furthermore, a third order polynomial function is used to generate two detection limits (high and low limit) for the VR and PR ratios obtained using LabVIEW simulation tool. The high and low detection limits are compared with real-time long-term data measurements from a 1.1 kWp and 0.52 kWp GCPV systems installed at the University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom. Furthermore, samples that lies out of the detecting limits are processed by a fuzzy logic classification system which consists of two inputs (VR and PR) and one output membership function. The obtained results show that the fault detection algorithm can accurately detect different faults occurring in the PV system. The maximum detection accuracy of the algorithm before considering the fuzzy logic system is equal to 95.27%, however, the fault detection accuracy is increased up to a minimum value of 98.8% after considering the fuzzy logic system.