Detecting clipping in photovoltaic solar plants using fuzzy systems on the feature space

• Power limiting situations can occur for different reasons than reaching the maximum output power of the inverter.
• We extracted a feature space from a PV power profile signal.
• We developed a fuzzy system to monitor this feature space.
• The monitoring system detects inverter power limiting situations.
• By using the monitoring system, it is possible to detect situations where the inverters must be repaired.

We propose the use of a fuzzy system evaluating a feature space extracted from the daily power production profile of a photovoltaic solar plant. The fuzzy system proposed is able to detect inverter power limiting situations, as well as stages where the photovoltaic solar plant is showing steady state power production. The approach has been validated using an experimental real grid connected photovoltaic plant located in Spain. The results demonstrate that the method is suitable for online detection, as well as for labeling incoming online data from the photovoltaic power production for a posteriori off-line analysis.