Detection of sensor anomalies in photovoltaic power systems

An anomaly detection system, comprising:

• a memory for storing machine-readable instructions;
• and
• a processor core for accessing the machine-readable instructions and executing the machine-readable instructions as operations, the operations comprising:
• determining, via analyzing plane of array irradiance (POAI) sensor data from a POAI sensor of a photovoltaic (PV) system with a trained classifier, that the POAI sensor data corresponds to a scenario of a set of scenarios, wherein the set of scenarios comprises a sensor anomaly scenario and one or more of a clear sky scenario, an overcast scenario, or a mix of sun and cloud scenario, and the sensor anomaly scenario characterizes a decreased effectiveness of the POAI sensor;
• and
• in response to determining that the POAI sensor data corresponds to the sensor anomaly scenario:
• generating an alert that indicates a sensor anomaly at the PV system;
• and
• replacing the POAI sensor data with substitute data.

A system for training an anomaly detection system, comprising:

• a memory for storing machine-readable instructions;
• and
• a processor core for accessing the machine-readable instructions and executing the machine-readable instructions as operations, the operations comprising:
• collecting, for a sensor anomaly scenario of a set of scenarios, first irradiance data associated with the sensor anomaly scenario and a photovoltaic (PV) system;
• collecting, for an additional scenario of a set of scenarios, second irradiance data associated with the additional scenario and the PV system, wherein the additional scenario is one of a clear sky scenario, an overcast scenario, or a mix of sun and cloud scenario;
• and
• training a classifier based on the first irradiance data and the second irradiance data to classify plane of array irradiance (POAI) sensor data among the set of scenarios.