Method for monitoring individual photovoltaic modules in an arrangement that comprises several photovoltaic modules and device for performing said method

Method for monitoring photovoltaic modules, which are used in an arrangement comprising several photovoltaic modules, which are connected in particular in series by means of electrical conducting means, the method comprising the steps of:

• associating a separate microcontroller with the respective photovoltaic module;
• performing continual determination of at least one status parameter of the respective photovoltaic module by the microcontroller;
• transmitting the data concerning the status parameter to an evaluating unit;
• designing the data intended to be transmitted to the evaluating unit in the form of data blocks;
• using the electrical conducting means present for connecting the individual photovoltaic modules to transmit the data blocks,
• wherein the data blocks are transmitted independently of each other so that the probability of said data blocks colliding with each other is greater than 0,
• wherein each microcontroller waits a delay time Tw to be generated randomly until a data block is fed into the electrical conducting means and the mean random delay time—ΔTw fulfills the following condition
• ΔTw≧N·TD/ΔCR
• wherein N depicts the number of photovoltaic modules in the series, TD is the time which is necessary to transmit a data block and ΔCR represents the mean error rate due to data blocks colliding with each other.