A Monitoring and Management System for Medium-Scale Photovoltaic Plants

Photovoltaic (PV) energy use is growing fast all over the world, due to new policies to reduce the application of fossil fuels. However, for achieving higher efficiency in the Renewable Power Plants (RPP), some Monitoring and Management System (MMS) are required, aiming to find the optimal operating conditions for the system. The main goal of a monitoring system is to evaluate the RPP's performance, throughout its operating time. In the same way, a management system aims to administrate and act over the system, in order to maximize its performance. In this scenario, the main objective of this paper is the proposition of one MMS, which focuses specifically on micro-generation (medium-scale), creating the possibility for final users and for Electric Utility Companies monitoring and operating plant parameters. In order to achieve that, electrical and environmental variables are monitored and computationally analyzed, producing instantaneous and historical data, allowing to estimate the plant efficiency and some actions over the plant's parameters, such as the power factor through the power inverter. We present the initial results of this MMS including a detailed description of each stage of the system, calibration procedures and a short-period monitoring, showing the feasibility of the proposal in a reduced PV plant of 5kW.