Data acquisition system for photovoltaic systems performance monitoring

In order to analyze the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems, we have developed a real-time expert system based on a central microcomputer used as a microserver and can be easily consulted from different automatic stations. The developed system is able to ensure the monitoring, supervision, and control of PV systems installed over a wide area, on one hand, and to create a general PV systems database, on the other. This paper presents a design of a universal data acquisition system with available components and which is easily accessible through a server. The hardware and software configuration of the expert system are described. Performance of this system are also presented when applied on PV systems.