Identification of Internal Defects of Solar Panels Using Equivalent Circuit

Abstract

Solar energy, individually, can provide all energy needs of the earth. Photovoltaic (PV) converters become better and better year by year from technical and economic viewpoints. Thus, they are going to provide a major portion of electrical energy, worldwide. PV panels may confront various anomalies in production stage or in operation. Therefore, these defects must be diagnosed in a timely manner. This paper proposes an equivalent circuit approach to detect abnormal behavior in PV panels. Any class of defects, affect one or more elements of AC equivalent circuit of a PV panel. Therefore, variations of those elements change frequency domain behavior of PV panels and can be detected visually.