Early detection of potential induced degradation in photovoltaic systems
AssigneeUniversity of Cyprus
InventorsMichalis Florides, George Makrides, George E. Georghiou
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Abstract
A photovoltaic (“PV”) sensor for the early detection of potential induced degradation (“PID”) comprising a housing; a power source located within the housing; an electrical connection presented by the housing for electrically communicating the power source with a PV module; and wherein current supplied by the power source to the PV module is less than 10 mA.
Claims21
A photovoltaic (“PV”) sensor for the early detection of potential induced degradation (“PID”) comprising:
- a housing;
- a power source located within the housing;
- an electrical connection presented by the housing for electrically communicating the power source with a PV module, wherein current supplied by the power source to the PV module is less than 10 mA;
- and
- an isolation device configured to electrically isolate the PV module from the remainder of a PV string when the current is supplied by the power source to the PV module, wherein the isolation device includes a switch or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (“MOSFET”).
A photovoltaic (“PV”) sensor for the early detection of potential induced degradation (“PID”) comprising:
- a housing;
- a power source located within the housing;
- an electrical connection presented by the housing for electrically communicating the power source with a PV module;
- an electrical detector in electrical communication with the electrical connection;
- a switch or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (“MOSFET”) configured to electrically isolate the PV module from the remainder of a PV string;
- and
- a central processing unit (“CPU”) configured to (i) cause the switch or MOSFET to electrically isolate the PV module from the remainder of a PV string and (ii) analyze an output from the electrical detector and determine, based on the output, a power loss of the PV module relative to a threshold power loss.
A photovoltaic (“PV”) assembly for the early detection of potential induced degradation (“PID”) comprising:
- a PV string including a plurality of PV modules;
- a sensor positioned and arranged to sense a PV module located at the negative voltage end of the PV string, the sensor including
- a housing,
- a power source located within the housing,
- a switch or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (“MOSFET”) configured to electrically isolate the PV module from the remainder of the PV string, and
- an electrical connection presented by the housing to electrically communicate the power source with the PV module located at the negative voltage end of the PV string for detecting at least one of PID development in or a percentage power loss of the PV module when the PV module is isolated from the remainder of the PV string by the switch or MOSFET.
A photovoltaic (“PV”) system for the early detection of potential induced degradation (“PID”) comprising:
- a sensor including
- a housing,
- a power source located within the housing,
- a switch or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (“MOSFET”) configured to electrically isolate a PV module from the remainder of a PV string, and
- an electrical connection presented by the housing for electrically communicating the power source with a PV module for detecting at least one of PID development in or a percentage power loss of the PV module when the PV module is isolated from the remainder of the PV string by the switch or MOSFET;
- and
- a central server in data communication with the sensor, wherein the central server is configured to enable a display screen to be populated according to data outputted from the sensor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.