Monitoring of PhotoVoltaic Systems

To maintain the high performance of photovoltaic systems, monitoring them is essential.

The monitoring system detects and follows all the parameters changing, and it gives an indication of which can be treated at the right time in the photovoltaic system.

Figure 1: Monitoring system

What are the components of the monitoring system?

1. The sensors: The PV parameters under actual conditions are measured by the sensors. Seven sensors have a wide range of sensors for detecting and calculating the weather parameters.
2. processing unit: It is a unit that boosts and releases signals for further processing. This device contains a processor that transmits the signal processing unit’s outputs in real time to a PC via a special protocol. This is usually a datalogger or a SCADA system.
3. The PC: the unit where the data is analyzed, saved, and finally shown by monitoring software.

Figure 2: Meteorological station

Is it possible to have a 100% performance for PV panels?

When we are talking about power losses, we are talking about losses of millions of dollars! However, full performance is still not possible due to many factors like soil accumulation on the panels, cell cracking, etc. Whenever talking about performance, three indicators have to be mentioned, which are considered the best three indicators.

• Final Yield (YF): The energy delivered to the load is divided by the rated output power.
• The reference yields (YR): is the ratio between the total solar isolation and the reference irradiance.
• The performance ratio (PR): is the ratio of YF to YR.

What is the remote setup service in seven?

We, as Seven Sensor, support our customers starting from selling them the sensors, and providing them with all the datasheets and documents needed to connect the sensors with a datalogger, to finally supporting them with the after-sales service, which is the remote setup that includes the configuration of the sensors in monitoring platforms. In general, the remote setup is done by our technical team that remotely connects to a customer’s laptop via Any Desk or Team Viewer and makes the settings and configuration of the sensors in the datalogger’s monitoring platform.