Development of a Fault Detection and Localization Algorithm for Photovoltaic Systems

Photovoltaic systems provide electrical power with reduced emissions at competitive costs compared to legacy systems. A low or medium voltage dc distribution system is usually used for solar integration. In dc systems, parallel and series arc faults are a safety concern. Thus, reliable and timely de...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of photovoltaics Vol. 13; no. 6; pp. 958 - 967
Main Authors: Xiong, Qing, Gattozzi, Angelo L., Feng, Xianyong, Penney, Charles E., Zhang, Chen, Ji, Shengchang, Strank, Shannon M., Hebner, Robert E.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.11.2023
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects:
Algorithms
Arc discharges
Arc faults
Capacitors
Circuit faults
Circuits
Electric potential
Electric power systems
Fault detection
Faults
Frequency spectrum
Identification methods
Localization
Location awareness
Maximum power tracking
Perturbation
photovoltaic (PV) system faults
Photovoltaic systems
Sensors
series arc fault detection
series arc fault localization
Voltage
ISSN:2156-3381, 2156-3403
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Photovoltaic systems provide electrical power with reduced emissions at competitive costs compared to legacy systems. A low or medium voltage dc distribution system is usually used for solar integration. In dc systems, parallel and series arc faults are a safety concern. Thus, reliable and timely detection and mitigation of arc faults are critical. DC arc detection methods typically use time or frequency spectrum variations of the circuit current or voltage to differentiate the arcing event from other system events. Since practical systems include power electronics and maximum-power-point tracking, any detection scheme must perform robustly in the electrical environment that these components establish in the dc power system. A capacitor placed in parallel with the main system is an effective sensor for series arc fault detection and localization applicable in this complex electrical environment. This article shows that the analysis of the amplitude, polarity, and spectrum characteristics of the capacitor current and voltage resulting from perturbations caused by the arc provides an effective method to identify and localize faults. The detection accuracy of the proposed approach is 98.3% and the localization accuracy rate is 100% for the correctly detected faults.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:2156-3381
2156-3403
DOI:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2023.3306073