The Investigation of Coupling-Unwanted Signal to the Solar Panel Material due to Induced Overvoltage Created by Short Spark Gap

Abstract

Photovoltaics (PV) system converts light into electric current using the photo-electric effect. Due to the growing demand for renewable energy sources, the manufacturing of solar cells and PV system arrays has advanced considerably in recent years. However, lightning protection on photovoltaic material is very crucial to avoid strike damage caused by transient overvoltage to the photovoltaic system that may due to a direct or an indirect strike. There is no experimental study recently to show the profile of unwanted signals due to induced overvoltage that is coupled to the solar panel system or related material. It is consequently imperative that experimental work to investigate the unwanted signal that is coupled to the solar panel material be conducted. In this study, the experimental set up of induced overvoltage was conducted in which the unwanted signal due to induced voltage was created by the short spark gap. The experiment was conducted in a High Voltage lab in University Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) using artificial lightning discharge of 1.2/50μs with the peak voltage of 33 kV. The distance between the solar panel and spark gap was varied in order to study the relationship between the maximum voltage of unwanted signal and the distance. The existence of unwanted signal due to induced voltage with of maximum voltage profile was observed and is discussed in detail in the result and discussion sections.