Development and implementation of a PV performance monitoring system based on inverter measurements

Performance monitoring and fault detection systems are becoming more common in large photovoltaic (PV) plants as they can contribute to decreasing operation and maintenance costs, as well as for maximizing plant yield and lifetime. However, in case of residential and smaller commercial PV system applications the cost of the performance monitoring hardware and implementation is still high. Therefore, we present the practical development and implementation of a low-cost PV performance monitoring system for residential and commercial PV applications, based on the inverter's own monitoring and communication capabilities. The proposed monitoring system supervises the PV array maximum power and inverter energy production using performance models of the system, and is able to detect PV array and inverter level power loss and faults.