Luminescence imaging is a technique used to characterize and inspect silicon samples, which is the primary material used in manufacturing most commercial photovoltaic cells. This technique captures electromagnetic radiation via silicon, generating images that provide insightful data regarding the solar cell performance. Luminescence images can ...
One effective method is to conduct a during-production inspection. This quality check thoroughly inspects each panel’s materials, manufacturing process, and performance characteristics to ensure they meet the required standards. Ensuring the quality of solar panels during production inspection is important for multiple reasons:
In most of the cases, PV plant monitoring is still done using different types of voltage and current sensors which are typically attached to PV strings, rather than to a single solar panel. Thus, the detection, classification, and localization of faults still require advanced machine learning and signal processing algorithms.
The inspection generally include factors such as: Visual Inspection: Visual inspection of solar panels include checking for visible defects, such as cracks, discolouration, scratches, or dents on the solar module, as well as any abnormalities in the framing or glass, junction box, and wiring.
Despite the above listed challenges, I-V and P-V curve measurement is the actual industry standard technique for inspecting and evaluating the performance of a solar plant. Another alternative is to deploy current and voltage sensors for online monitoring of the PV plant which are typically deployed inside the inverters.
The purpose of this paper is to review different monitoring techniques of large photovoltaic (PV) plants. They can be categorized into cameras or non-cameras-based techniques which both yield complementary information.
Infra-red (IR) cameras. Often, defects in photovoltaic cells result in the occurrence of hotspots induced by a recombination of electrons which can create holes in the solar cells. This cause heat generation leading to a temperature difference between a good cell and a defective one of more than 50 °C , .