Abstract
Recently, 3 kW residential PV (Photovoltaic) junction boxes have mainly been installed on the roof or outer wall of building. Wired and wireless monitoring systems are being implemented by RS-485 and WIFI/IoT. However, conventional monitoring systems have a communication limitation according to the distance and environment. It cannot receive any information when a failure of the PV junction box occurs. Therefore, there is a need for a strategy to determine whether the fuse and diode in the PV junction box are faulty through voltage and current sensors. In this paper, we propose a novel strategy for monitoring PV junction boxes, based on LoRa (Long Range). The TTGO LoRa32 V2.0 module with LoRa and various input and output ports is utilized. The wireless TX module transmits various data collected from the PV junction box to the RX module in real time. In addition, the RX module displays the received data on an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen so that the user can intuitively identify it, and the data is recorded on the internal storage device or database in the web server. The manufactured PV junction box monitoring system was tested under a 3 kW PV system. Additionally, communication reception has stable signal intensity overall, both indoors and outdoors. In particular, it shows excellent characteristics in maintaining RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) > −99 dBm and PER (Packet Error Rate) < 2.7%, up to a radius of 200 m, even in NLOS (Non Line-Of-Sight) environments. Although some packet loss occurred, it was confirmed that invisible communication was possible up to 300 m.
Highlights
Accepted: 24 February 2022The South Korean government has been implementing the ’Renewable Energy 30200 policy since 2017 to lower the average temperature of the Earth, which is rising amid global climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [1,2]
We suggest a novel strategy for monitoring a PV junction box based on LoRa in a 3 kW residential PV system
Conventional monitoring systems have a communication limitation according to the distance and environment
Summary
The South Korean government has been implementing the ’Renewable Energy 30200 policy since 2017 to lower the average temperature of the Earth, which is rising amid global climate change, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions [1,2]. In the case of a PV generation facility, to which a large inverter is applied, an individual failure of a PV module is able to cause very large losses in the entire system [11] For this reason, PV junction boxes require continuous monitoring for stable power production. It is used for commercial purposes, such as wide-area IoT services, and even business operators are able to stay in business [33] This enables long-distance, low-power wireless network monitoring without charging additional costs. A monitoring system consisting of LoRa communication and subsystems could be an innovative development strategy for building micro-networks in residential and commercial buildings It is useful for providing and managing a monitoring system in order to implement microgrids, such as power quality improvement, reliability improvement and energy loss minimization [34,35].
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