An IOT based sensing system for remote monitoring of PV panels

Nowadays renewable energy resources are playing a vital role for energy conservation over diverse applications and scenarios. Unfortunately, harsh environment has negative effects on the performance of PV cells. The remote monitoring of PV cells will boost the efficiency of maintenance. The emerging paradigm of Internet of Things (IOT) and the availability of low cost sensors (wearable, implantable, and environmental) can bring lots of benefits to efficient clean energy production and the monitoring of the state of PV cells. Here, we develop an IoT system based on battery less RFID (Radio-frequency identification) technology for remote monitoring of PV cells and their health state. In this application the developed IOT based solution is used for measuring temperature of hot spots of PV cells in real-time and sending this information over the net using an SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) protocol to central stations for proper action in case of abnormalities such as overheat. The proposed system was tested with very promising results in terms of early detection of PV overheat and prompt transmission of alerts.