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Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems
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Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 9184

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Antonino Laudani

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Engineering, University Roma Tre, Via Vito Volterra, 64, 00146 Rome, Italy
Interests: solar energy and photovoltaic systems; electrical power and energy system; artificial intelligence; renewable energy; smart grids and microgrids
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Gabriele Maria Lozito

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Information Engineering, University of Florence, Firenze, Italy
Interests: numerical modelling; renewable energy; neural networks; power converters; machine learning; optimization; embedded devices; circuits; energy storage; solar energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Solar energy generation and photovoltaic systems are strongly influenced in their performances and general behavior by a large set of variables from the environmental, physical, and electrical domains. All domains influence and are influenced by human activities, devices, and infrastructures surrounding the PV system. Accurate assessment and forecasting of these variables are key assets in planning, design, management, and optimization of all the applications related to solar energy production. Moreover, knowledge of these variables is required for proper fault detection and diagnosis in several PV applications. This Special Issue will focus on all innovative solutions, from sensing mechanisms to the processing of data, for all quantities and variables influencing the production of energy from photovoltaic conversion. Welcome topics include but are not limited to:

  • Sensors and sensing strategies for irradiance, temperature, and other weather-related quantities;
  • Sensors and sensing strategies for PV system voltages, currents, energy, power, and other electrically relevant quantities;
  • Sensors and sensing strategies for fault detection and diagnosis of PV devices and surrounding systems;
  • Calibration, characterization and testing procedures for PV-oriented sensors;
  • Embedded implementation of sensors, preprocessing techniques, computational-oriented strategies, edge computing;
  • Machine learning and soft-computing techniques for data processing, aggregation, filtering, and forecasting in PV systems and applications.

Prof. Dr. Antonino Laudani
Dr. Gabriele Maria Lozito
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

28 pages, 10840 KiB  
Article
Redundant Fault Diagnosis for Photovoltaic Systems Based on an IRT Low-Cost Sensor
by Joan Ochoa, Emilio García, Eduardo Quiles and Antonio Correcher
Sensors 2023, 23(3), 1314; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23031314 - 24 Jan 2023
Viewed by 1665
Abstract
In large solar farms, supervision is an exhaustive task, often carried out manually by field technicians. Over time, automated or semi-automated fault detection and prevention methods in large photovoltaic plants are becoming increasingly common. The same does not apply when talking about small [...] Read more.
In large solar farms, supervision is an exhaustive task, often carried out manually by field technicians. Over time, automated or semi-automated fault detection and prevention methods in large photovoltaic plants are becoming increasingly common. The same does not apply when talking about small or medium-sized installations, where the cost of supervision at such level would mean total economic infeasibility. Although there are prevention protocols by suppliers, periodic inspections of the facilities by technicians do not ensure that faults such as the appearance of hot-spots are detected in time. That is why, nowadays, the only way of continuous supervision of a small or medium installation is often carried out by unqualified people and in a purely visual way. In this work, the development of a low-cost system prototype is proposed for the supervision of a medium or small photovoltaic installation based on the acquisition and treatment of thermographic images, with the aim of investigating the feasibility of an actual implementation. The work focuses on the system’s ability to detect hot-spots in supervised panels and successfully report detected faults. To achieve this goal, a low-cost thermal imaging camera is used for development, applying common image processing techniques, operating with OpenCV and MATLAB R2021b libraries. In this way, it is possible to demonstrate that it is achievable to successfully detect the hottest points of a photovoltaic (PV) installation with a much cheaper camera than the cameras used in today’s thermographic inspections, opening up the possibilities of creating a fully developed low-cost thermographic surveillance system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems)
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12 pages, 2014 KiB  
Article
A Power-Line Communication System Governed by Loop Resonance for Photovoltaic Plant Monitoring
by José Ignacio Morales-Aragones, Matthew St. Michael Williams, Halleluyah Kupolati, Víctor Alonso-Gómez, Sara Gallardo-Saavedra, Alberto Redondo-Plaza, Miguel Ángel Muñoz-García, Francisco José Sánchez-Pacheco and Luis Hernández-Callejo
Sensors 2022, 22(23), 9207; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22239207 - 26 Nov 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2177
Abstract
Within this paper, a PLC system that takes advantage of the loop resonance of an entire DC-PV string configured as a circular signal path is developed and implemented. Low cost and extremely simple transceivers intended to be installed within each PV module of [...] Read more.
Within this paper, a PLC system that takes advantage of the loop resonance of an entire DC-PV string configured as a circular signal path is developed and implemented. Low cost and extremely simple transceivers intended to be installed within each PV module of a string have been designed and successfully tested. In addition, an anti-saturation coil has been conceived to avoid saturation of the core when the entire DC current of the string flows through it. Bi-directional half-duplex communication was successfully executed with up to a 1 MHz carrier frequency (150 kbps bitrate), using a simple ASK modulation scheme. The transmission and reception performance are presented, along with the overall system cost in comparison to the previous literature. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems)
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20 pages, 3319 KiB  
Article
Architecture of an Electrical Equivalence Pyranometer with Temperature Difference Analog Control
by Evandson Claude Seabra Dantas, José Taunaí Dantas Segundo, Sebastian Yuri Cavalcanti Catunda, Diomadson Rodrigues Belfort, Raimundo Carlos Silvérios Freire and Paulo Fernandes da Silva Júnior
Sensors 2022, 22(21), 8137; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22218137 - 24 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1568
Abstract
In this paper, an architecture of an electrical equivalence pyranometer with analog control of the temperature difference is presented. The classical electrical equivalence pyranometer employs a Wheatstone bridge with a feedback amplifier to keep the sensor operating at a constant temperature to estimate [...] Read more.
In this paper, an architecture of an electrical equivalence pyranometer with analog control of the temperature difference is presented. The classical electrical equivalence pyranometer employs a Wheatstone bridge with a feedback amplifier to keep the sensor operating at a constant temperature to estimate the incident radiation through the sensor thermal balance employing the electrical equivalence principal. However, this architecture presents limitations under ambient temperature variation, such as sensitivity variation. To overcome those limitations, we propose an architecture that controls the temperature difference between the sensor and ambient via an analog compensating circuit. Analytical results show an improvement near five times in sensitivity over the ambient temperature span and 76.3% increase of useful output voltage. A prototype was developed and validated with a commercial pyranometer, showing a high agreement on the measurement results. It is verified that the use of temperature difference, rather than constant temperature, significantly reduces the effect of ambient temperature variation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems)
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21 pages, 4399 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study on Performance Enhancement of a Photovoltaic Module Incorporated with CPU Heat Pipe—A 5E Analysis
by Seepana Praveenkumar, Aminjon Gulakhmadov, Ephraim Bonah Agyekum, Naseer T. Alwan, Vladimir Ivanovich Velkin, Parviz Sharipov, Murodbek Safaraliev and Xi Chen
Sensors 2022, 22(17), 6367; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22176367 - 24 Aug 2022
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 2998
Abstract
As is already known, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is a widely accepted technology for power generation worldwide. However, it is scientifically proven that its power output decreases with an increase in the temperature of the PV module. Such an important issue is controlled [...] Read more.
As is already known, solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is a widely accepted technology for power generation worldwide. However, it is scientifically proven that its power output decreases with an increase in the temperature of the PV module. Such an important issue is controlled by adopting a number of cooling mechanisms for the PV module. The present experimental study assesses the effect of a fanless CPU heat pipe on the performance of a PV module. The experiment was conducted in June in real weather conditions in Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation. The comparative analysis of two PV panels (i.e., cooled, and uncooled) based on the electrical energy, exergy performance, economic, embodied energy and energy payback (5E) for the two systems is presented and discussed. The key results from the study are that the average temperature reduction from the cooling process is 6.72 °C. The average power for the cooled panel is 11.39 W against 9.73 W for the uncooled PV panel; this represents an increase of 1.66 W for the cooled module. Moreover, the average improvements in the electrical efficiency, and embodied energy recorded for a cooled PV panel 2.98%, and 438.52 kWh, respectively. Furthermore, the calculations of the levelized cost of energy (LCE) for the cooled PV panel indicate that it can range from 0.277–0.964 USD/kWh, while that for the uncooled PV panel also ranges from 0.205–0.698 USD/kWh based on the number of days of operation of the plant. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensing Technologies Applied in Solar Energy and Photovoltaic Systems)
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