Abstract
Newly installed renewable power capacity has been increasing incredibly in recent years. For example, in 2018, 181 GW were installed worldwide. In this scenario, in which photovoltaic (PV) energy plays a leading role, it is essential for main players involved in PV plants to be able to identify the failure modes in PV modules in order to reduce investment risk, to focus their maintenance efforts on preventing those failures and to improve longevity and performance of PV plants. Among the different systems for defects detection, conventional infrared thermography (IRT) is the fastest and least expensive technique. It can be applied in illumination and in dark conditions, both indoor and outdoor. These two methods can provide complementary results for the same kind of defects, which is analyzed and characterized in this research. Novel investigation in PV systems propose the use of a power inverter with bidirectional power flow capability for PV plants maintenance, which extremely facilitates the electroluminescence (EL) inspections, as well as the outdoor IRT in the fourth quadrant.
Highlights
Renewable energies are nowadays a completely mainstream element in the global electricity mix.Combined with energy efficiency, renewables are playing a decisive role in decreasing emissions in the energy sector and in end-use sectors
We propose to denominate these inspections as outdoor infrared thermography (IRT) or outdoor IRT in the fourth quadrant along this paper
Authors have presented a bidirectional inverter that is used to carry out EL without disconnection of modules
Summary
Renewable energies are nowadays a completely mainstream element in the global electricity mix.Combined with energy efficiency, renewables are playing a decisive role in decreasing emissions in the energy sector and in end-use sectors. With 181 GW added, the newly connected renewable power capacity set new records worldwide in 2018, raising the total by more than 8%. 2018, adding a total fixed PV solar capacity of 505 GW [1,2]. In this scenario in which PV energy plays a leading role, failure recognition systems in photovoltaic plants are important to all actors involved in them. Ensuring the reliability of photovoltaic plants, as well as their durability, has been essential in recent decades. This is important to know the origin of the failures, as well as their traceability [4]
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