An 18 kW solar array research facility for fault detection experiments

Monitoring utility-scale solar arrays was shown to minimize cost of maintenance and help optimize the performance of the array under various conditions. In this paper, we describe the design of an 18 kW experimental facility that consists of 104 panels fitted with smart monitoring devices. Each of these devices embeds sensors, wireless transceivers, and relays that enable continuous monitoring, fault detection, and real-time connection topology...