PLC-based photovoltaic system management for smart home energy management system

This paper describes a photovoltaic (PV) system management scheme. A typical PV system installed in home monitors only the status values at the inverter. It has difficulty in localizing failures in the PV system for maintenance. To overcome this, we propose a PLC-based management scheme that consists of a PLC modem, a renewable energy gateway (REG), and a smart device application. The PLC modems measure the status of PV modules. The REG aggregates the measured status values from the PLC modems. The smart device application displays the status of the whole PV system. A user can easily localize failures in the PV system for better performance and maintenance. The proposed scheme enhances a PV system management and can create synergy with smart home energy management system.