International Renewable Energy Congress

November 5-7, 2009 - Sousse Tunisia

Monitoring and control of the performances for photovoltaic systems

M.Hamdaoui1, A. Rabhi2, A. El Hajjaji2, M. Rahmoun1, M. Azizi1

1
Université Mohamed 1st Faculty of Science Oujda Morocco
2
M.I.S (Laboratory of Modeling, Information and Systems)
7, Rue Moulin Neuf, 80610 Amiens
hamdaoui_mohammed@yahoo.fr

ABSTRACT to monitor the evolution of their capabilities, and to detect

the faults. In this article, we present a technique which
In this article we propose a method for the monitoring
and control of the performances of the
PV (photovoltaic) systems. The method is divided into
two parts. In the first, one carries out the contributes to the detection of the faults and to monitoring
characterization of PV modules under various weather the degradation of the performances of a PV system.
conditions (temperature and illumination) in order to
follow the degradation of the performances of the solar 2. CONTROL AND MONITORING OF THE
panels. The second part is dedicated to real-time PERFORMANCES FOR SOLAR MODULES
comparison of the power produced by PV to that
obtained from simulation model developed using
Matlab/simulink software. This last was validated by 2-1 Modeling of generator statement
using the data accessible on the software from NASA
“HOMER”. The real results show the effectiveness of The electric power generated from the PV panels depends
the method suggested. on the intensity of the sunning, and the temperature of the
cells. The equivalent electric diagram of a PV cell is given
Index Terms— Photovoltaic, control, data by figure 1.
acquisition, dimensioning, system of measurement, Ipv
fault detection.
ID RS
1. INTRODUCTION
IL
D VD Rp Vp
The fast evolution of the renewable energy sources v
(SRE) during the two last decades had as consequence the
installation of many systems in the world. The
Figure 1: Electric diagram equivalent of a cell of a PV module
disadvantage of the latter is the high cost of installation.
The good dimensioning of a PV installation is very
important initially for the optimization of its size and its - Where IL represents the photocurrent developed in the
cost. Then, it is important to continuously follow and photovoltaic cells by the solar radiation.
control the performances of this PV installation. Electrical - Resistances RS and RP respectively represent resistances of
the metal contacts and escapes of junction PN.
faults and the aging of PV modules cause a malfunction of
the photovoltaic system. Several research laboratories - D represents a junction PN. Current ID circulating in this
were interested about the SRE [2,3] and various diode, polarized by a tension VD, is given by the expression:
techniques were developed either for dimensioning, the
regulation to have a maximum of power [4],or for the fault  qV  
detection [5,6,7]. The monitoring and the control of the I D  I Sat   exp D   1
 KT  
performances of system state and their produced powers
are the higher importance to evaluate them continuously, The model of a photovoltaic cell under a solar radiation is

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given by the following relation [2]:

Figure 3: electric system of characterization solar modules.

The module which we have at the laboratory is mono-

crystalyne A-300. The electric model of PV module was
simulated using Matlab/simulink software. The program,
calculates the current Ipv (Vpv) for different illumination
(G), and temperatures (T).
The non-linearity of the PV model is solved by using
numerical methods. In our case, one used the method of
Newton-Raphson.the figure 2 represents the characteristic
Ipv (Vpv) for a temperature T=25°C and different
illumination G=1000 W/m2, 800 W/m2,600 W/m2,
Figure 4: photo of electric system of
400W/m2,200 W/m2.
characterization solar modules.

The principle of operation of the system is simple: we

consider a whole of resistance gone up in parallel with the
solar module. Each resistance is in series with a Mosfet
transistor as its shown in figure 3. To plot curve I (V), we
developed a program under Labview. The purpose of the
program is to activate Mosfets in a sequential way to have a
variable load at the boundaries of the solar module, And
using the card of data acquisition NI-6035E, we measure the
current and the tension with each value of resistance (load)
by the means of the sensors of current and tension. The
Figure 2: simulation of the characteristic
measurements obtained are stored in a file to trace the
Ipv (Vpv) for T=25 °C pour T=25 °C
characteristic (I-V).
An example of characterisation of the solar module, by this
method is shown in Figure 5.
2-2 Characterization of the solar panels

The majority of degradations of known PV

modules influences directly on the characteristic (I-V).
The continues monitoring of this characteristic enables to
detect any possible degradation of the performances of
PV module and then to analyze them in order to better
understand the mechanisms of degradation [9], in
continuation to intervene for corrective or preventive
maintenance. A system of characterization of the solar
modules able to measure the characteristic I (V) was Figure 5 characteristics I (V) of the solar module. T=20°C,
carried out for this study figures 3 and 4. G=80,100 et1110W/m

3. Control and monitoring of the power

produced by a PV system

The second part of our method is the control and to follow

of the produced power. It is based to the measure in real
time of the power produced by PV system , and at the same
time it is compared with the results obtained by our model
of simulation. The permanent visualization of the measured
power and that simulated is a method among others for

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detection of defect [8] .it is adapted to provide in real
time the detection of the defaults for the photovoltaic
installations. The disadvantage of this method is that it
does not locate the defects. Because of a material
problem, we could not validate this part by data real. To
create a reference index for our study we used measures
taken of the data base of the Retscreen software of the
Abbeville city in France. The simulation of the power
produced by PV module was simulated using software
HOMER and of our model of simulation. We took the data
of solar radiation and temperatures for June and July,
figure 6 A and B show the results obtained. According to
this figure it appeared that there was a good agreement
between the results obtained using software HOMER and
those obtained by our model. It should be noted that
software HOMER calculates the monthly average power.
A 11.18.2003 Osaka, Japan
B Exit, 13-17 May 1996 Page (S):1287 - 1290
A Jesus da Costa Fernandes, Thomas Feldmann, Elmar
Figure 6: Simulation of the power produced by the solar module
using software HOMER and of our model of simulation. A: data in June,
B: data in July
5. CONCLUSION
This work was completed in
Laboratory where i spent 3 months of training. A
method of monitoring and controlling of the
performances of the SRE was developed. The results
obtained show the effectiveness of this one. In
prospect, we plan to practically validate this method by
causing defects on the solar modules to be able to
detect them.
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