DC Series Arc Fault Detection Method With Resonant Filter Design for PV Systems

Photovoltaic (PV) power generation has become widespread owing to the global need to achieve carbon neutrality. With the increase in the number of PV systems, a broken connector in the PV panel induces a dc series arc fault condition. Therefore, arc fault detection technology becomes significant to guarantee the safety and reliability of PV systems. However, the series arc fault condition is similar to that of the normal operation with a small current variation, which makes it difficult to classify the normal and arc fault conditions. In this article, the resonant filter is proposed to improve the dc series arc fault detection capability. The characteristics of arc fault current are analyzed with the considerations of PV and converter impedance. The operational principle and design methodology of the proposed resonant filter are analyzed to clarify the arc fault signal through decoupling with the converter impedance. In addition, the algorithm for arc fault detection is designed with the proposed resonant filter. The experiment setups are designed with a dc optimizer and two commercial inverters, which can verify the arc fault detection performance with the proposed resonant filter.