Optical fibre-based sensors for monitoring offshore floating photovoltaic farms

Solar photovoltaic farms are seeing increasing expansion into new domains (offshore) in order to harvest the sunlight as society pushes towards reaching Net Zero by 2050. However, photovoltaics are bound by physics, parameters such as temperature and strain varying result in changes in efficiency. Predictive maintenance through remote sensing can also save resources particularly in a domain where equipment and personnel are relatively expensive. This work represents the first investigation into the utilisation of Fibre Bragg Gratings (FBG) for offshore floating solar farms. It proposes a robust multiplexed network of FBG sensors to monitor these parameters in the harsh oceanic environment where equivalent electromechanical equivalents would fail. Using Super luminous LED (Light Emitting Diode), FBG interrogators, multiplexing techniques and the sensors themselves reliable, effective strain and temperature measurement can be made. A series of MATLAB simulations into how FBGs can be engineered to achieve these results were carried out. The findings suggest that applied to a select case study, 2 strain and 49 temperature sensors can be multiplexed on a single line of fibre. An experiment was also carried out that placed FBGs on an aluminum solar panel frame that suggests a bandwidth of 13.32μm would be needed to encompass the range in that specific study.