Abstract
Accurate and fast fault monitoring system is important for photovoltaic (PV) systems to reduce the damage and energy loss associated with faults. This paper presents a fast fault detection and classification scheme for PV systems. The rate of change of the measured power at the array level is firstly used to detect and differentiate between shading and PV system short-circuit faults. Then, the measured cross-strings differential currents classify the fault type in the case of short-circuit faults. The proposed method accounts for intra-string, string-to-negative terminal, cross-string (string to string), and pole-to-pole short-circuit faults, as well as open circuit faults. Two current transducers per two strings are only required to apply the method leading to a significant reduction in the number of transducers/sensors compared to the literature, making it a cost-effective solution. The fault is detected and classified in 1 ms. A 400 kW PV system consisting of 4 arrays simulated using MATLAB/Simulink package is used for the evaluation process. Short-circuit faults are imposed at different conditions of mismatch levels and fault resistance values. Also, operation at reduced irradiance level is considered, and shading faults are simulated in different levels. The simulation results prove the ability of the proposed scheme to detect and differentiate between shading and short-circuit faults. The proposed method can correctly classify different fault types in almost all cases. The low implementation cost due to the lower number of required sensors and the fast-operating time (1 ms) boost the feasibility of the proposed method.
Highlights
The electric load demand is increasing, intending to electrify the transportation sector, which increases the need for more energy generation
In 2019, the electricity generation sector in the United States of America was the second-highest source of greenhouse gases with 25% [2], and it accounted for 21% of emissions in the United Kingdom for the same year [3]
This paper proposes a simple and fast fault detection and classification model to overcome the limitations in the literature
Summary
The electric load demand is increasing, intending to electrify the transportation sector, which increases the need for more energy generation. The main drawbacks of this model are evaluating many conditions for classifying each fault type, the complexity of the suggested algorithm, the irradiance effect has not been considered, and it did not separate between low and high fault levels. In [20], a technique based on the difference between the maximum power tracking point for the simulated and the real PV arrays (output voltage, current, and power) has been proposed It classified string and shading faults without distinguishing between low and high fault states. The proposed method uses the rate of change of the measured power at the array level to detect and distinguish between shading and PV system short-circuit faults. It can detect and classify different fault types (intrastring, cross-string (string to string), string-to-negative terminal, pole-to-pole, shading, and open circuit) at different irradiance and fault resistance levels. Fast operation as it operates in 1 ms. It can be applied to different PV system sizes as the controlling parameters are calculated from either the PV system parameters or through simple simulation studies
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