Fault diagnosis for PV arrays considering dust impact based on transformed graphical feature of characteristic curves and convolutional neural network with CBAM modules

Various faults can occur during the operation of PV arrays, and both the dust-affected operating conditions and various diode configurations make the faults more complicated. However, current methods for fault diagnosis based on I-V characteristic curves only utilize partial feature information and often rely on calibrating the field characteristic curves to standard test conditions (STC). It is difficult to apply it in practice and to accurately identify multiple complex faults with similarities in different blocking diodes configurations of PV arrays under the influence of dust. Therefore, a novel fault diagnosis method for PV arrays considering dust impact is proposed. In the preprocessing stage, the Isc-Voc normalized Gramian angular difference field (GADF) method is presented, which normalizes and transforms the resampled PV array characteristic curves from the field including I-V and P-V to obtain the transformed graphical feature matrices. Then, in the fault diagnosis stage, the model of convolutional neural network (CNN) with convolutional block attention modules (CBAM) is designed to extract fault differentiation information from the transformed graphical matrices containing full feature information and to classify faults. And different graphical feature transformation methods are compared through simulation cases, and different CNN-based classification methods are also analyzed. The results indicate that the developed method for PV arrays with different blocking diodes configurations under various operating conditions has high fault diagnosis accuracy and reliability

Tres arquitecturas neuronales implementadas en la detección y categorización de anomalías en paneles fotovoltaicos

Solar panels are useful and efficient tools. They need to be kept in excellent working condition, but as time goes by, they suffer from external failures manifested in the environment. Therefore, the need for effective monitoring of such systems is highlighted. Neural models are perfect candidates to perform physical damage recognition. In this case, we compare the performance of three artificial neural networks, the multilayer perceptron, the densely connected neural network, and the ResNet-50 network in this identification problem. What is intended to be obtained from this method is the practical demonstration of the use of neural networks to solve real problems.Los paneles solares son herramientas útiles y eficientes. Necesitan mantenerse en excelente estado de funcionamiento, pero a medida que pasa el tiempo, sufren fallos por externos manifestados en el ambiente. Por lo tanto, se resalta la necesidad de hacer un seguimiento efectivo de dichos sistemas. Los modelos neuronales son candidatos perfectos para realizar el reconocimiento de los daños físicos. En este caso, se compara el desempeño de tres redes neuronales artificiales, el perceptrón multicapa, la red neuronal densamente conectada y la red ResNet-50 en este problema de identificación. Lo que se pretende obtener de este método es la demostración práctica del uso de las redes neuronales para solucionar problemas reales

A lightweight network for photovoltaic cell defect detection in electroluminescence images based on neural architecture search and knowledge distillation

Nowadays, the rapid development of photovoltaic(PV) power stations requires increasingly reliable maintenance and fault diagnosis of PV modules in the field. Due to the effectiveness, convolutional neural network (CNN) has been widely used in the existing automatic defect detection of PV cells. However, the parameters of these CNN-based models are very large, which require stringent hardware resources and it is difficult to be applied in actual industrial projects. To solve these problems, we propose a novel lightweight high-performance model for automatic defect detection of PV cells in electroluminescence(EL) images based on neural architecture search and knowledge distillation. To auto-design an effective lightweight model, we introduce neural architecture search to the field of PV cell defect classification for the first time. Since the defect can be any size, we design a proper search structure of network to better exploit the multi-scale characteristic. To improve the overall performance of the searched lightweight model, we further transfer the knowledge learned by the existing pre-trained large-scale model based on knowledge distillation. Different kinds of knowledge are exploited and transferred, including attention information, feature information, logit information and task-oriented information. Experiments have demonstrated that the proposed model achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the public PV cell dataset of EL images under online data augmentation with accuracy of 91.74% and the parameters of 1.85M. The proposed lightweight high-performance model can be easily deployed to the end devices of the actual industrial projects and retain the accuracy.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Solar Power System Plaing & Design

Photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) systems for the conversion of solar energy into electricity are technologically robust, scalable, and geographically dispersed, and they possess enormous potential as sustainable energy sources. Systematic planning and design considering various factors and constraints are necessary for the successful deployment of PV and CSP systems. This book on solar power system planning and design includes 14 publications from esteemed research groups worldwide. The research and review papers in this Special Issue fall within the following broad categories: resource assessments, site evaluations, system design, performance assessments, and feasibility studies

Advanced Operation and Maintenance in Solar Plants, Wind Farms and Microgrids

This reprint presents advances in operation and maintenance in solar plants, wind farms and microgrids. This compendium of scientific articles will help clarify the current advances in this subject, so it is expected that it will please the reader

A Review on Artificial Intelligence Applications for Grid-Connected Solar Photovoltaic Systems

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is increasing in various sectors of photovoltaic (PV) systems, due to the increasing computational power, tools and data generation. The currently employed methods for various functions of the solar PV industry related to design, forecasting, control, and maintenance have been found to deliver relatively inaccurate results. Further, the use of AI to perform these tasks achieved a higher degree of accuracy and precision and is now a highly interesting topic. In this context, this paper aims to investigate how AI techniques impact the PV value chain. The investigation consists of mapping the currently available AI technologies, identifying possible future uses of AI, and also quantifying their advantages and disadvantages in regard to the conventional mechanisms

A comprehensive study of diagnosis faults techniques occurring in photovoltaic generators

Recently, many focuses have been done in the field of renewable energies, especially in solar photovoltaic energy. Photovoltaic generator, considered as the heart of any photovoltaic installation, exhibits sometimes malfunctions which involve degradations on the overall photovoltaic plant. Therefore, diagnosis techniques are required to ensure failures detection. They avoid dangerous risks, prevent damages, allow protection, and extend their healthy life. For these purposes, many recent studies have given focuses on this field. This paper summarizes a large number of such interesting works. It presents a survey of photovoltaic generator degradations kinds, several types of faults, and their major diagnosis techniques. Comparative studies and some critical analyses are given. Other trending diagnosis solutions are also discussed. A proposed neural networks-based technique is developed to clarify the main process of diagnosis techniques, using artificial intelligence. This method shows good results for modelling and diagnosing the healthy and faulty (shaded) photovoltaic array