Monitoring system for photovoltaic plants: A review

The Photovoltaic (PV) monitoring system collects and analyzes number of parameters being measured in a PV plant to monitor and/or evaluate its performance. In order to ensure the reliable and stable operation of any PV system, an effective monitoring system is essential. Moreover, the monitoring system keeps track on various electricity generation indices and fault occurrences. The cost and complexity of existing PV monitoring systems restricts their use to large scale PV plants. Over the past decade, different aspects of PV monitoring systems were reported in wide range of literature. In this paper, a comprehensive review of various PV monitoring systems is presented for the first time. This includes the detailed overview of all the major PV monitoring evaluation techniques in terms of their relative performances. Major aspects of PV monitoring systems which examines in this paper are: sensors and their working principles, controller used in data acquisition systems, data transmission methods, and data storage and analysis. The acquaintance of all these aspects are crucial for the development of effective, low cost, and viable PV monitoring systems for small and medium scale PV plants without compromising on the desired performance.