Development of power line communication circuit for solar farm monitoring

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a monitoring module which communicates through DC power line in order to monitor solar farm. It consists of 2 separate parts which are Monitoring Unit (MU) to measure voltage of each solar panel, and Data Concentrator Unit (DCU) to gather information from all MUs on string and measure total voltage at the end of each string. The article explains the concept of solar farm monitoring and pulse transmission through DC power line. The design of the proposed MU, both hardware and software, is described and experimental results of transmission between DCU and MU are given.