286
1, JANUARY 2016
Monitoring and Diagnostics of PV Plants
by a Wireless Self-Powered Sensor
for Individual Panels
Pierluigi Guerriero, Fabio Di Napoli, Gianlorenzo Vallone, Vincenzo d’Alessandro, and Santolo Daliento
Abstract—In this paper, an innovative sensor suited to per-
form real-time measurements of operating voltage and current,
open-circuit voltage, and short-circuit current of string-connected
photovoltaic (PV) panels is presented. An effective disconnection
system ensures that the sensor does not affect the behavior of the
string during the measurement phase and offers many benefits
like the automatic detection of bypass events; moreover, the sensor
does not require additional cables thanks to a wireless communi-
cation and a power supply section based on energy harvesting. An
extensive experimental campaign is performed to prove the reli-
ability and usefulness of the sensor for continuous monitoring of
PV plants. The capability to detect faults and accurately localize
malfunctioning panels in a PV string is highlighted.
Index Terms—Maximum power point (MPP), monitoring sys-
tem, partial shading, photovoltaic (PV) plant, sensor.
I. INTRODUCTION
URING the past few years, the worldwide diffusion of
D photovoltaic (PV) systems has known a very impressive
growth, mainly thanks to an aggressive feed-in tariffs policy re-
sulting in tens of installed gigawatts, distributed over hundreds
of thousands of PV plants. On the other hand, the rapid decrease
in the government subsidies has caused an insane haste in plants
installation, sometimes involving poorly skilled designers, thus
leading to unexpected yield degradations due to unaccounted
issues like, e.g., underestimated partial shading occurrence and
panel faults. As a consequence, many PV customers are experi-
encing unsatisfactory energy yields that compromise their bud-
get plans. Therefore, innovative and effective monitoring and
diagnostic strategies aimed to improve system reliability and
efficiency have become fields of interest for the PV industry.
As well known, a PV system is composed of a number of
variously interconnected elementary blocks (PV panels), and its
performance can be even dramatically impacted by the failure
of only one of them. However, as the number of blocks is very
large, it is very arduous to keep the whole system under control
to ensure effective maintenance. As a result, highly specialized
monitoring tools devised to promptly identify malfunctioning
conditions are particularly sought.
Manuscript received June 24, 2015; revised September 7, 2015; accepted
September 22, 2015. Date of publication October 26, 2015; date of current
version December 18, 2015.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Informa-
tion Technology, University of Naples Federico II, 80125 Naples, Italy (e-mail:
pierluigi.guerriero@unina.it; fabio.dinapoli@unina.it; gianlorenzo.vallone@
gmail.com; vindales@unina.it; daliento@unina.it).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2484961
2156-3381 © 2015 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 6, NO.
The monitoring of PV plants is often performed at a
“low-granularity” level (e.g., strings, arrays, subplants) due to
the following misleading assumptions: 1) PV panels have a
relatively low fault probability (about 15% of the PV system
failures [1]) in their life cycle; 2) each problem arising at a panel
level propagates to a larger plant portion, and therefore even
a “low-granularity” monitoring system can in principle detect
its effect. However, in most cases, “low-granularity” systems
do not allow identifying the location of the problem, and costly
in-situ inspection and string disassembling are then required. In
other words, owners of PV plants usually accept only a rough
malfunctioning detection without considering the additional
costs incurred to localize the faults. Some examples are in
order. In [2] and [3], a subplant-level monitoring approach is
presented, which detects degradations in the actually produced
PV power with respect to the producible power estimated by a
global model exploiting real-time irradiation and temperature
measurements. Power losses can be identified by comparing per-
formances corresponding to different sections of the PV plant by
using an inferential algorithm [4], [5], heuristic models [6], and
even neural networks [7]. Moreover, in [8], an ac electrical char-
acterization is performed on the PV string to detect hot spotting.
However, in medium/high power plants, the number of panels
can rise to many thousands, thus making fault localization cum-
bersome and increasing the possibility of maintenance query.
An accurate detection of defects and faults in PV plants can
be achieved by using thermographic/visual inspection [9] and
time-domain reflectometry technique [10] during their opera-
tion and maintenance. In the first case, light unmanned aerial
vehicles equipped with thermal and visual cameras collect dig-
ital images allowing the identification of malfunctioning panels
by means of pattern recognition methods; in the second one, a
voltage signal is applied to the PV string to observe the signal re-
sponse waveforms and locate the fault position. A fault detection
and classification method relying on a temperature distribution
analysis is proposed in [11]. Unfortunately, the above strategies
are not suitable for real-time monitoring; moreover, they cannot
quantify the energy loss due to each issue and, consequently,
the returns on maintenance investments.
Better results in terms of localization of faults and estimation
of yield degradation can be reached by adopting real-time “high-
granularity” approaches relying on sensors applied to individual
PV panels. As reported in [12], an accurate power loss map-
ping can be achieved by equipping the panels with individual
dc power optimizers. The energy loss estimation is performed
by comparing each panel with the best performing one in the
GUERRIERO et al.: MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS OF PV PLANTS BY A WIRELESS SELF-POWERED SENSOR 287

plant in terms of energy production, on the assumption that the

optimizer always reaches the maximum power point (MPP).
However, this method suffers from two drawbacks: first, it leads
to an increase in system complexity and costs; second, dc power
optimizers may not be compatible with old-generation invert-
ers, thus being often inadequate for the monitoring of already-
installed plants.
Other “high-granularity” solutions are based on monitoring
circuits (hereinafter also referred to as “sensors”) mounted on
selected host panels for the real-time detection of their operat-
ing points. Valuable attempts can be found in, e.g., [13]–[18].
Contrary to the other available sensors, our prototype proposed
in [19] allows performing measurements of the open-circuit
voltage Vo c and short-circuit current Isc of the panel by elec-
tronically disconnecting it from the string. In [20], an enriched
variant of this sensor has been presented, which is also suited to
measure the operating voltage Vpanel and current Ipanel of the
monitored panel.
The aim of this paper is to present a further enhanced version Fig. 1. Schematic block diagram of the proposed monitoring circuit.
of such a circuit, which, compared with the solution in [20],
is equipped with an improved disconnection system to prevent
thermal issues under bypass conditions. The proposed sensor
can be considered as an electronic frame of the host panel and
offers a number of appealing features that can be summarized
as follows: 1) accurate detection and localization of degradation
issues of the photogenerated current by continuous Isc monitor-
ing; 2) automatic detection and localization of bypass events;
3) detailed yield mapping by analyzing the operating points of
individual panels [21]; 4) reliable real-time estimation of the
maximum producible power of a string by exploiting the model
proposed in [22]; 5) quantification of the yield improvements
that could be achieved with a proper maintenance/upgrading,
thus allowing easy comparison between investments and rev-
enue; 6) solution to reliability [23] and security [24], [25] issues.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the sensor is
described with special emphasis on its functionalities and main
advantages with respect to the other sensors for individual pan-
els. In Section III, the sensor architecture is explained. In Section Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the disconnection system.
IV, results of experiments performed on a pilot installation are
discussed. Conclusions are then drawn in Section V.
A. Disconnection System
The sensor disconnects the individual panel by exploiting the
aforementioned switch and a bypass diode referred to as D in
II. PHOTOVOLTAIC SENSOR
parallel to the branch including panel and switch, as shown in
Fig. 1 illustrates the schematic block diagram of the proposed Figs. 1 and 2. The switch inhibits the current flow through the
sensor, which is composed by disconnection system, power panel, while the bypass diode provides an alternative path to
supply section comprising charge circuit, energy storage de- the string current Istring , thus preventing the interruption of the
vice (ESD), and dc/dc converter, measurement circuit, wireless energy generation. The switch is realized with a power MOSFET
communication, and microcontroller unit (MCU). Each element referred to as M1 , the driving network of which is sketched in
will be described in detail in the following. Fig. 2.
It should be underlined that the host PV panel terminals (P+ Fig. 3 shows the system behavior in three typical operating
and P−) are connected to the sensor, while the sensor terminals conditions. In particular, Fig. 3(a) illustrates the normal opera-
(S− and S+) are connected to the adjacent panels of the string. tion mode. In this case, the panel is under full irradiation and
The panel is separated from the string by a controlled electronic conducts the whole Istring . Most likely it works close to its MPP
switch connected between nodes P− and S+. Node P− is the thanks to the inverter tracking action, thus keeping D reverse bi-
electrical reference of the sensor because it always exhibits the ased. The panel voltage is high enough to force the Zener diode
lowest potential in the whole circuit. Dz1 shown in Fig. 1 to work at its breakdown voltage (4.7 V),
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Fig. 3. Operating modes: (a) normal operation, (b) bypass conditions under
mismatch, and (c) disconnection.
Fig. 4. I–V curves of the host panel (solid black lines) corresponding to two
different irradiation levels and M1 output characteristics at three values of V g s , 1 ,
namely, 4.7 V (dashed gray line), 2–3 V (short-dashed gray line), and 0 V (dotted
gray line). The operating points of both panel and M1 , which correspond to the
operating modes described in Fig. 3, are marked by triangles (panel) and circles
(M1 ). The string current Istrin g is also reported.
thereby making M1 operate in the ON state with a negligible
voltage drop (Rds,ON is about 5 mΩ). The voltage drop VS−S+
falling across the sensor terminals can be estimated by means
of the graphical construction shown in Fig. 4, which reports
the I–V curves of both M1 and the panel for the three afore-
mentioned conditions. During normal operation, the operating
point of M1 , corresponding to the current Istring , is very close
to the y-axis, and VS−S+ (indicated by the double arrowed line)
is almost equal to the operating voltage Vpanel , thus proving
that in this case the sensor does not modify the panel behavior.
Fig. 3(b) describes the system under mismatch conditions, when
the panel is less irradiated with respect to the other panels in the
string (due to, e.g., panel faults, panel ageing, dirt—including
bird droppings—or other undesired objects on the panel surface,
architectural shading) and the bypass diode conducts the Istring
portion that cannot flow through the panel any longer. The panel
behavior is now described in Fig. 4 by the I–V curve exhibiting a
lower photogenerated current. This current flows through M1 as
well, so that the gate–source voltage Vgs,1 (see Fig. 2) decreases
to about 2–3 V according to the new drain current, and the I–V
characteristic of M1 is lowered; moreover, Fig. 2 reveals that the
drain–source voltage Vds,1 coincides with Vpanel (by neglecting
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2016
the forward voltage across the bypass diode D). This means that
when bypass conditions occur, the operating point is given by
the intersection of the two I–V curves.
It is worth noting that Vpanel never reaches a negative value,
i.e., the panel still generates power that is instead dissipated by
M1 [23].
The bypass operating mode is fully reversible, that is, when
the irradiance increases and the panel current grows to reach the
string current, Vpanel increases as well, while Vds,1 decreases,
thus restoring the operating condition described in Fig. 3(a).
Under bypass conditions, both Vpanel and Vds,1 are about 2–3 V
(the upper boundary for Vds,1 can be measured by forcing a
drain current equal to the maximum string current, while drain
and gate terminals are short-circuited). Such a low Vpanel can in-
hibit power supplying to the sensor; moreover, the sensor might
be damaged due to the high dissipation of the MOS transistor.
These issues, affecting the previous sensor version [20] (where
the disconnection circuit was not able to detect bypass condi-
tions), are resolved in the variant presented in this study by
automatically keeping the panel in disconnection mode, as de-
scribed in Fig. 3(c); for this purpose, the circuit exploits another
power MOS transistor (M2 in Fig. 2) to disconnect the panel
from the string by deactivating M1 . In this case, the intercept
between the curves in Fig. 4 shows that the panel current be-
comes equal to zero as well. As a consequence, Vds,1 reaches the
voltage Vo c , while the whole Istring flows through D. No power
dissipation affects M1 , and Vpanel is high enough to make the
power supply work properly. As will be shown in Section III-
B, in this operating condition it is possible to perform reliable
measurements of Vo c and Isc of the host panel.
A dedicated driving network (which corresponds to the
branch comprising Rz2 and Dz2 reported in Fig. 2) is imple-
mented to activate M2 as Vds,1 increases by exploiting a posi-
tive feedback. Unfortunately, the disconnection mode is a stable
condition because the panel remains disconnected even if the
mismatch event is over. In order to avoid this issue, a digital
stimulus (reported in Fig. 2 as disc) is applied by the MCU
to the gate terminal of M2 . In normal operating conditions, the
corresponding MCU output is disabled (high impedance status),
thus not affecting the circuit behavior. Conversely, as the MCU
senses an increase in Vds,1 (bypass detection), it sets disc to
keep M2 ON, thereby disconnecting the panel. Afterward, the
MCU periodically puts disc to 0 in order to let the panel return
to normal mode. If the panel remains bypassed (Vds,1 still high),
disc is set again. It is remarkable that it is possible to disconnect
the panel in spite of its operating condition by just setting disc.
To this aim, the sensor is provided with an on-demand discon-
nection feature, which helps improve reliability and safety of
the PV system [24], [25].
B. Power Supply Section
As in [13]–[15] and [17], each sensor is supplied by the cor-
responding host panel to avoid additional cabling. In particular,
the power supply section should be able to work properly in
spite of the operating point imposed to the panel by the inverter
MPP tracking (MPPT). In other words, the operating area of
the sensor must cover the whole I–V curve for a wide range
GUERRIERO et al.: MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS OF PV PLANTS BY A WIRELESS SELF-POWERED SENSOR
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the power supply section.
of temperature and irradiance levels, even under partial shad-
ing conditions (in a panel composed by three subpanels the
MPP may be located at around one third of the nominal voltage
VM PP ). Moreover, in our case, the sensor should be powered
by the supply section during the measurement phase (when the
panel is isolated) to guarantee high accuracy in the Isc and Vo c
detection. Consequently, an ESD is needed.
In previous works [26]–[28], wireless sensors are powered by
small PV panels according to traditional energy-harvesting ap-
proaches. These sensors exploit dc–dc converters with dedicated
MPPT to adjust the operating point of the panel according to
the energy requirements of the overall circuit. Such a strategy is
not suitable for the proposed application because the operating
point must not be affected by the supply section. To overcome
these issues, in [13]–[15] and [17], linear voltage regulators are
adopted. Unfortunately, the employed regulators provide nar-
row input voltage ranges, thereby causing the sensor to turn OFF
in case of partial shading, MPPT failures, and bypass. Those
sensors could in principle turn OFF just when they should detect
a malfunctioning event.
As shown in Fig. 5, the proposed power supply section is
composed of two stages.
The first stage, directly connected to the panel terminals,
is a voltage regulator offering a suitable voltage level to the
ESD and providing energy to the second stage. The voltage
regulator comprises Rz3 , Dz3 and Mpwr , while the ESD is a
2-F supercapacitor denoted as SuperCap. The driving network
Rz3 /Dz3 is devised to charge the SuperCap to a voltage level of
about 3 V; the charge voltage is limited by the Dz3 threshold
(4.7 V), the gate–source voltage of Mpwr (typically 1.5 V), and
the voltage drop across the 10-Ω resistor Rlim . At the sensor
start-up (ESD completely discharged), Rlim limits the charge
current to 300 mA, thus preventing the overheating of Mpwr .
The second stage is devised to generate the desired voltage
levels, i.e., 3.3 V for the MCU and 12 V for the measurement
circuit, and is realized with an integrated dc–dc step-up converter
requiring an input voltage level spreading over the range 1.8–
3.3 V. In normal operation (SuperCap voltage equal to 3 V),
the second stage derives a current of 25 mA to feed the circuit.
The ESD must mainly operate as a back-up energy storage
289
element during the measurement phase. During this period (up
to 10 ms), Mpwr is intentionally switched OFF and the SuperCap
feeds the dc–dc with the nominal current (25 mA), thus ensuring
a small voltage drop. Actually, the ESD capability (2 F) allows
supplying the sensor for about 20 s without being charged, by
considering the minimum input voltage (1.8 V) of the dc–dc and
the corresponding current consumption (40 mA). This implies
that the sensor has enough time to communicate even after the
occurrence of severe nonfunctioning conditions.
The PV sensor is designed to harvest energy also at a low
Vpanel (down to 4.7 V, i.e., the breakdown voltage of the Zener
diode Dz3 ). This threshold is lower than the subpanel VM PP
reduced by the forward voltage of the bypass diodes for most
commercial PV panels. Moreover, in case of mismatch, the pos-
itive feedback in the disconnection system keeps the panel first
bypassed and then disconnected, thus not interrupting the power
feeding of the sensor. Unfortunately, if Vpanel decreases but the
panel is not bypassed (no current mismatch), the sensor turns
OFF. Nevertheless, the panel will be bypassed (the disconnec-
tion system is always active when the sensor is OFF), and the
sensor will be able to rapidly charge the SuperCap and regain
its normal operation.
C. Measurement Circuit
The monitoring—and diagnostics—action consists in a dou-
ble electrical characterization of the host panel. As in [13]–[15]
and [17], the sensor performs the identification of the actual
operating point by means of the measurement of Vpanel and
Ipanel . As well known, the operating point depends mainly on
the environmental conditions (temperature and irradiance lev-
els) and on the MPPT action of the inverter. A correct iden-
tification provides information about the actual produced PV
power and allows achieving an accurate power mapping of the
whole plant. Unfortunately, no information can be gained about
the potentially producible power and the health status of the
panel. In order to obtain a complete characterization unaffected
by the inverter action, in a second phase the proposed sensor
keeps the panel in disconnection mode and measures Vo c and
Isc . It is worth noting that, in normal operation, Vo c mainly de-
pends on temperature, while Isc is proportional to the irradiance
level [22]; in addition, their product is proportional to the po-
tentially producible power [21]. However, it must be remarked
that measured data cannot directly lead to local irradiance and
temperature levels concerning each individual subpanel. Even
though better results could be achieved by performing Vo c and
Isc measurements on each subpanel, this approach is not suit-
able for commercial panels since the electrical terminals of the
subpanels are physically series connected, thus not allowing the
sensor insertion.
As shown in Fig. 6, the measurement circuit is composed
of two sensing sections. The voltage sensing section is imple-
mented by a resistive divider in parallel to the panel and is used
to measure both Vpanel (M1 ON) and Vo c (M1 OFF). The current
sensing section, based on a shunt resistance, can be connected
either in parallel to or in series with the panel. In particular, in
disconnection mode (M1 OFF), as Mm eas2 is activated, the cur-
rent sensing section can measure Isc due to the low value of the
290
Fig. 6. Simplified scheme of the measurement circuit.
shunt resistance. Moreover, as Mm eas1 is kept ON and M1 OFF,
Istring flows through the current sensing section, which performs
the Ipanel measurement. The impedance matching between the
measurement circuit and the MCU 10-bit ADC is ensured by
proper analog conditioning interfaces (buffer stages).
The measurement procedure is articulated into the following
steps: 1) Mm eas1 is activated, while M1 is kept OFF; 2) Vpanel
and Ipanel are acquired; 3) the panel is isolated from the string
(both M1 and Mm eas1 are OFF); 4) the charge network is dis-
abled; 5) Vo c is acquired; 6) the panel is driven into short-circuit
conditions by activating Mm eas2 ; 7) after a dead time, Isc is
acquired; 8) the charge network is reactivated and the panel is
reconnected to the string (Mm eas1 and Mm eas2 OFF, M1 ON); and
9) reliable values are subsequently determined by averaging the
samples stored in the data memory of the MCU. The measure-
ment circuit works properly even in bypass conditions, and Vo c
and Isc can be monitored also if the panel is intentionally kept
disconnected (on-demand disconnection).
While Vpanel is solely related to the panel behavior, the oper-
ating voltage drop VS−S+ offers information on how the system
panel + sensor is interacting with the rest of the string. In nor-
mal operation, VS−S+ is almost equal to the measured Vpanel
due to the negligible voltage drop across M1 ; when the panel is
under bypass conditions (M1 OFF and Vpanel = Vo c ), VS−S+ is
equal to the negative of the forward voltage of D.
The disconnection of a panel from the string during normal
operation can result in an undesired disturb on the operating
point, which may lead the MPPT control of the inverter to in-
stability. Therefore, the sensor is designed to perform Vo c and
Isc measurements in the short 3-ms-long time frame, well be-
low the inertia of the large input capacitance of the inverter;
furthermore, only one panel at a time is disconnected.
D. Wireless Communication
The wireless communication makes use of a homemade
protocol based on Microchip MiWi (IEEE 802.15.4 compli-
ant, 2.4-GHz frequency). Each PV sensor is provided with a
MRF24J40MA transceiver (up to 400 ft range, throughput of
250 kbps), which is fully compatible with the adopted MCU
and allows low power consumption (typically 19 mA in RX,
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2016
Fig. 7. Block diagram illustrating the proposed approach applied to a PV
string.
23 mA in TX, 2 μA in sleep). Each PV sensor of the network
is univocally identified with its own address; this significantly
simplifies the maintenance operations since the single malfunc-
tioning panel is immediately detected also in large PV plants,
thereby avoiding the need of in-situ inspections.
E. Microcontroller Unit
The core of the sensor is a Microchip PIC18LF4620 MCU
belonging to the low power 8-bit family. In order to mini-
mize power consumption, the sleep mode of MCU is widely
adopted. The MCU is awakened from sleep mode by the occur-
rence of two different kinds of interrupts: 1) watch dog interrupt
and 2) external interrupt. The first type occurs periodically to
let the MCU handle the bypass detection. The second type is
generated by the transceiver as soon as a message is received
from the coordinator (see Section III). The message contains
a measurement request and the desired disconnection status.
Then, the MCU executes the corresponding command by man-
aging measurement phases/duration and data acquisition, then
sends back measured data and the actual disconnection status,
and finally returns in sleep mode.
The sensor is rated for 100 V/10 A, while the maximum volt-
age that can be safely applied to the panel terminals is 120 V
(i.e., Vds,m ax of device M1 ). The accuracy of the sensor was
evaluated to be much lower than 1% of the full scale by compar-
ing outdoor measurements performed on various panels under
different operating conditions with those carried out with a high-
precision multimeter.
III. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
The proposed approach is illustratively sketched in Fig. 7
with reference to a single PV string composed by the series of
N panels. In this case, all panels are equipped with a sensor re-
sulting in a wireless distributed sensor network. A coordinator
unit manages the network by periodically sending to the sensors
both data acquisition requests and desired disconnection status.
GUERRIERO et al.: MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS OF PV PLANTS BY A WIRELESS SELF-POWERED SENSOR 291

The sensors allow data collection with arbitrary time schedul-

ing, down to one second and less between each measurement.
Collected data are sent to the corresponding coordinator via
wireless communication. Subsequently, each coordinator trans-
fers data to a remote station via serial bus RS-485 for storing
and analysis. Finally, the remote station makes data available on
the internet by means of a web-based user interface. It must be
remarked that one coordinator unit can handle up to 256 sen-
sors. Moreover, the maximum number of coordinator units on
the same serial bus is 256, while the length of the serial cable is
up to 1000 m. According to these considerations, the proposed
approach can be applied also to large PV plants.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

A wide experimental campaign was carried out in order to
confirm the effectiveness of the monitoring strategy relying on
the proposed sensors. The analysis was conducted on a roof-top
test plant comprising two PV strings (hereinafter denoted as A
and B), each of them composed by ten 210 Wp panels equipped
with three bypass power diodes.
The first experiment, performed on string A, was conceived
to explore the effect of small-sized architectural shading (due to,
e.g., chimneys, TV antennas, poles, thin fences), which is com-
monly believed to entail a negligible degradation in the yield
of domestic roof plants, since the energy loss is commonly, yet
erroneously, associated to the shaded area. Fig. 8 depicts the
behavior of the short-circuit current Isc and the voltage VS−S+
corresponding to the panels affected by the shadow (i.e., #6 and
Fig. 8. Experimental (a) short-circuit currents Isc and (b) operating voltages
#7) during a whole day (July 7). The measurements were per- V S −S + against time for panels #4 (solid black lines), #6 (dotted black lines),
formed every 90 s, which is a very fine acquisition rate; Isc was and #7 (dot-dashed black lines) belonging to string A. In (a), the string current
determined by individually disconnecting the panels. The other Istrin g (solid gray line) is also depicted.
panels belonging to the string are not affected by the shadow,
thus exhibiting an even behavior in terms of Isc and VS−S+ .
power loss. A detailed explanation of this effect will be provided
For comparison, the data corresponding to the sunny panel #4
at the end of this section.
are also reported as reference. It should be underlined that all
A further inspection of Fig. 8(b) reveals that the shadow
panels in the string conduct the same operating current Ipanel ,
propagates over the string by gradually affecting also panel #6.
coinciding to the string current Istring depicted in Fig. 8(a). An
More in general, from a diagnostic viewpoint, the propagation
Isc drop affecting panel #7 is observed from 3:00 P.M. until
of bypass events over the string that seems to be consistent with
evening, which proves that all its subpanels are shaded; it is
the trajectory of the Sun must be ascribed to an architectural
indeed well known that a partial shading event does not degrade
shading. This conjecture can be confirmed by comparing the
the short-circuit current of a panel until all subpanels are ob-
data collected in several days in order to verify that the bypass
scured. Fig. 8(b) provides additional information: the operating
events repeatedly take place in the same time window.
voltage VS−S+ corresponding to panel #7 exhibits the typical
The second experiment was conceived to explore the effect of
ladder shape due to the gradual bypass of the subpanels; the
a single malfunctioning panel on the whole string performance.
shadow falls on the panel at about 1:00 P.M. sequentially involv-
Similarly to the previous case, Fig. 9 depicts Isc and VS−S+
ing the three subpanels, while VS−S+ drops by about 1/3 of the
data monitored during a whole day (November 13), referring
nominal Vo c as each subpanel is bypassed.1
to a couple of panels of string B, namely, #1 and #2; the mea-
It is worth noting that a marked temporary perturbation in the
surements were carried out every 180 s. Fig. 9(a) highlights that
operating behavior of the string appears when the first subpanel
panel #1 is affected by an Isc constantly lower with respect to
of panel #7 is forced in bypass conditions. In this case, the
the other panels (including #2), which share the same behavior;
string operating current dramatically decreases, while the string
this can be reasonably attributed to the presence of dirt on its
operating voltage slightly increases, thus resulting in a large
surface. As a result, the string current coincides with the oper-
ating current Ipanel of panel #2, which is reported in Fig. 9(a)
1 It must be remarked that under bypass conditions V
S −S + (which is not as reference.
directly measured) is simply set to the negative of the forward voltage of the
bypass diode, while being nearly equal to the measured Vp a n e l under normal The analysis of the operating voltages VS−S+ [see Fig. 9(b)]
operation (see Section II-C). witnesses the occurrence of two bypass events affecting panel
292 IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2016

Fig. 10. Effect of mismatch event. (a) Typical step sequence performed by
the MPPT algorithm. (b) Evolution of V S −S + and Isc of selected panels. (b)
Magnification of Fig. 9 over the time interval between 12:00 P.M. and 3:00 P.M.

Fig. 9. Experimental (a) short-circuit currents Isc and (b) operating voltages
V S −S + against time for panels #1 (dotted black lines) and #2 (solid black lines)
belonging to string B. In (a), the string current Istrin g (solid gray line) is also
shown.

#1 between 9:00 A.M. and 10:30 A.M. and between 2:00 P.M.
and 3:30 P.M., respectively. In this case, Istring is close to Isc of
panel #2, thus proving that the string reaches the global MPP.
Conversely, around noon, panel #1 is still active, thus limiting
the string current and causing a significant power loss. It is
interesting to note that Istring regains the expected value as
panel #1 falls bypassed.
As noted in the previous experiment, the limiting action due to
a malfunctioning panel results in an increase in operating voltage
and a decrease in operating current. In order to clarify this
Fig. 11. Experimental string power (solid black line) against time compared
event, Fig. 10(a) shows the typical step sequence followed by with maximum producible power (dashed line) and to an MPP estimation ob-
the MPPT algorithm. At the beginning, the string is completely tained by means of the iMPPT algorithm (dotted line). The gray area indicates
sunny (1); then, the producible power gradually decreases due the power loss due to the MPPT failures.
to a mismatch effect (2); subsequently, the MPPT algorithm
forces an increase in Vpanel by assuming a uniform condition MPP by increasing Vpanel and consequently reducing Ipanel (3).
and, undesirably, tracks a local maximum instead of the absolute Eventually, the MPPT action keeps panel #1 bypassed at about
one located at a lower voltage (3); finally, the MPPT algorithm 2:00 PM, thus making the other panels of the string regain their
(likely after a complete scanning of the power–voltage curve) normal behavior (4).
drives the operating point to the absolute maximum by reducing The above results evidence that the monitoring approach
the voltage (4). based on the proposed sensors reliably reveals temporary MPPT
This behavior allows explaining the VS−S+ data collected by failures, which represent a significant part of the yield degrada-
the sensors and depicted in Fig. 10(b): panel #1 limits the string tion under mismatch conditions.
current (2) due to its poor Isc with respect to the rest of the string. In Fig. 11, the measured string power is compared with an
First, the inverter pushes other panels to work far from their estimation of the MPP of the string obtained thanks to the iMPPT
GUERRIERO et al.: MONITORING AND DIAGNOSTICS OF PV PLANTS BY A WIRELESS SELF-POWERED SENSOR
algorithm proposed in [22], which performs temperature and
irradiance mapping for individual panels by exploiting the real-
time panel-level Vo c and Isc measurements collected by the
proposed sensors. Moreover, it provides an exact identification
of all local maxima in the P–V curve of the string, thus locating
and quantifying the global MPP. In addition, Fig. 11 reports
the string power corresponding to the hypothetical case where
each panel would work individually (i.e., not limited by the
other panels in the string) close to its MPP, i.e., the maximum
producible power. The contribution of each panel to the string
power is calculated as the product of the measured Vo c and Isc
weighted by the fill factor, which is in turn obtained by the
nominal value reported in datasheets by means of a temperature
adjustment, as proposed in [22]. Under uniform irradiance and
temperature conditions, the three curves would coincide; in case
of mismatch, the power loss due to the mismatch is quantified
by the gap between the maximum producible power and that
estimated by the iMPPT algorithm, while the drop between the
latter and the measured one represents the power loss caused by
the MPPT failure.
This analysis allows a detailed quantification of energy loss,
thus favoring an easy comparison between investment and rev-
enue of maintenance actions. It must be underlined that the
power degradation due to MPPT failures can be avoided by a
proper exploitation of the on-demand disconnection feature of-
fered by the sensor. In particular, the panels limiting the power
production (i.e., the active panels exhibiting an Isc lower than
the estimated IM PP ) can be intentionally disconnected. As a
result, the local maxima located at a voltage higher than VM PP
will be eliminated, thus helping the inverter force the string close
to the global MPP. Unfortunately, it is not possible to eliminate
the local maxima located at a voltage lower than VM PP without
affecting the global maximum power.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an individual PV panel sensor network has been
presented. The sensor is suited to measure various key param-
eters of the panel, namely, short-circuit current, open-circuit
voltage, and actual operating point without affecting the en-
ergy production. Moreover, it exhibits a wide operating area,
working properly even under bypass conditions. A wide exper-
imental investigation has been performed in order to verify the
effectiveness of the proposed monitoring system. It has been
demonstrated that a proper inspection of the collected data al-
lows gaining a complete insight into the behavior of the PV
plant and its interaction with the inverter under shading condi-
tions. In particular, the shadow propagation along the string, the
number of shaded subpanels belonging to a chosen module, as
well as the effects of the MPPT action can be easily observed
and deeply understood.
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Pierluigi Guerriero received the Laurea and Ph.D.
degrees in electronics engineering from the Univer-
sity Federico II, Naples, Italy, in 2007 and 2012, re-
spectively.
From 2009 to 2012, he was an R&D Project Head,
working on photovoltaic applications with ISET Srl,
Valle di Maddaloni, Italy. He is currently a Postdoc-
toral Researcher with the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Information Technology, University
Federico of Naples II. He has coauthored 30 papers
in refereed international journals and conference pro-
ceedings, the book Dispositivi e Sistemi Fotovoltaici, and three patents. His
research interests include monitoring systems for photovoltaic arrays, the de-
velopment of effective maximum power point tracking algorithms, and dc–ac
converters.
Dr. Guerriero is a reviewer for the IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS and
Solar Energy.
Fabio Di Napoli received the Laurea degree in elec-
tronics engineering from the University Federico II,
Naples, Italy, in 2012. He is currently working toward
the Ph.D. degree with the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Information Technology, University
of Naples Federico II.
He has coauthored 17 papers in refereed interna-
tional journals and conference proceedings. His re-
search interests include circuit simulation of photo-
voltaic (PV) plants, monitoring of PV panels, fault
detection, power converters control, and the design
of microinverters.
Mr. Di Napoli is a reviewer for the IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS.
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2016
Gianlorenzo Vallone received the Laurea degree in
electronics engineering from the University Federico
II, Naples, Italy, in 2010.
He is an R&D and technical consultant. He special-
izes in renewable energy applications, with a strong
focus on power conversion and distributed metering
systems. He joined the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering and Information Technology, University Fed-
erico II, first on behalf of his former employer, then
as an expert in the field. His research activities on
photovoltaic systems has led to several papers and a
patent application.
Vincenzo d’Alessandro received the Laurea and
Ph.D. degrees in electronics engineering from the
University Federico II, Naples, Italy, in 1999 and
2003, respectively.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the De-
partment of Electrical Engineering and Information
Technology, University Federico II, where he teaches
Semiconductor Devices and Digital Circuits. He has
coauthored more than 130 papers in refereed interna-
tional journals and conference proceedings, the book
Dispositivi e Sistemi Fotovoltaici, two book chapters,
and one patent. His research interests include thermal modeling and electrother-
mal simulation of semiconductor devices, circuits, and systems, with particu-
lar emphasis on bipolar technology, and modeling/simulation of photovoltaic
plants.
Prof. d’Alessandro is a reviewer for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON
DEVICES, IEEE ELECTRON DEVICE LETTERS, the IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTO-
VOLTAICS, Solid-State Electronics, Microelectronics Reliability, the Interna-
tional Journal of Numerical Modeling, as well as for international conferences.
Santolo Daliento received the Laurea and Ph.D. de-
grees in electronics engineering from the University
Federico II, Naples, Italy, in 1992 and 1996, respec-
tively.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the
Department of Electrical Engineering and Informa-
tion Technology, University Federico II, where he
teaches Analog Electronics and Photovoltaic Devices
and Systems. He has coauthored more than 80 papers
in refereed international journals and conference pro-
ceedings, the book Dispositivi e Sistemi Fotovoltaici,
and two patents. His research interests include modeling of power devices, life-
time engineering treatments, semiconductor characterization techniques, and
innovative photovoltaic devices.
Prof. Daliento is a reviewer for the IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, So-
lar Energy, Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, as well as for international
conferences.