Photovoltaic Module to Module Monitoring System

A PV plant monitoring system, which is able to detect faults in individual modules is presented. The system is divided in two parts: A control unit for the whole PV plant and a measuring circuit connected in parallel to each PV module. The measuring circuit is able to disturb the working point of the module and measuring this perturbation estimate the I-V characteristic of the module without disconnecting it from the rest of the system. The system is able to detect a fault in each module by obtaining the real outpout power, the expected power without failures, and the maximum power point. The system was designed in terms of low cost and simplicity, to operate in an automatic and remote way.