Search

Degradation of PV modules can cause excessive overheating which results in a reduced power output and eventually failure of solar panel. To maintain the long term reliability of solar modules and maximize the power output, faults in modules need to be diagnosed at an early stage. This paper provides a comprehensive algorithm for fault diagnosis in solar modules using infrared thermography. Infrared Thermography (IRT) is a reliable, non-destructive, fast and cost effective technique which is widely used to identify where and how faults occurred in an electrical installation. Infrared images were used for condition monitoring of solar modules and fuzzy logic have been used to incorporate intelligent classification of faults. An automatic approach has been suggested for fault detection, classification and analysis. IR images were acquired using an IR camera. To have an estimation of thermal condition of PV module, the faulty panel images were compared to a healthy PV module thermal image. A fuzzy rule-base was used to classify faults automatically. Maintenance actions have been advised based on type of faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrared thermography is a non destructive temperature measuring technique, widely used in agriculture, process industries, manufacturing, pharmaceutical industries, and construction industries to detect anomalies, to predict possible faults, or to check the quality of the object. In this paper, two systems, real time and off line, are proposed to monitor the temperature variations and analyze hot regions in the electrical assets using infrared thermograms. This novel technique helps to prevent the electrical assets before any catastrophe would happen in the future. The color based segmentation technique is used to blotch hot regions in the thermograms of electrical systems. A redness area based algorithm is also proposed to analyze the hot regions and also to estimate rate of change of hotness in electrical assets for early detection and prediction of faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]