Performance Analysis and Fault Diagnosis Method for Concentrator Photovoltaic Modules

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to evaluate and diagnose faults in Concentrator Photovoltaic modules by using a computer model on outdoor test data, accounting for environmental effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to decouple environmental impacts from module degradation for accurate fault diagnosis in CPV systems.

Findings

Effective performance assessment method established

Fault diagnosis technique successfully applied to outdoor data

Decoupling environmental effects improves diagnosis accuracy

Abstract

Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV) systems use high efficiency multi-junction solar cells with efficiencies >40%, but the module efficiency is often much lower. The increased complexity of a CPV module, with optics, receiver and the tracker gives an increased probability that faults will arise during the operational lifetime. In addition, a location like India has varied atmospheric conditions that further complicates the diagnosis of faults. It is therefore important to decouple effects due to the external environment (such as the atmosphere) from effects due to the degradation of the module. By applying a computer model to outdoor CPV test data in Bangalore, India we have established a method to assess the performance of the CPV module and finally we present a method to diagnose faults in the module.