Monitoring of Defects of a Photovoltaic Power Plant Using a Drone

Martin Libra, Milan Daneček, Jan Lešetický, Vladislav Poulek, Jan Sedláček and Václav Beránek
Additional contact information
Martin Libra: Faculty of Engineering; Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Milan Daneček: Faculty of Engineering; Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Jan Lešetický: Faculty of Engineering; Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Vladislav Poulek: Faculty of Engineering; Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Jan Sedláček: Faculty of Engineering; Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamycka 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic
Václav Beránek: Solarmonitoring, Ltd., 14700 Prague, Czech Republic

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 5, 1-9

Abstract: Drone infrared camera monitoring of photovoltaic (PV) power plants allows us to quickly see a large area and to find the worst defects in PV panels, namely cracked PV cells with broken contacts. Roofs are suitable for the integration of PV power plants into buildings. The power plant at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, which was monitored by this method, does not show any significant defects, and the produced electric energy exceeds the expected values. On the contrary, the PV power plant in Ladná has visible defects, and the data monitoring system Solarmon-2.0 also indicates defects. Our newly developed data monitoring system Solarmon-2.0 has been successfully used in 65 PV power plants in the Czech Republic and in many PV power plants throughout the world. Data are archived and interpreted in our dispatch area at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. The monitoring system can report possible failure(s) if the measured amount of energy differs from the expected value(s). The relation of the measured values of PV power to the PV panel temperature is justified, which is consistent with the physical theory of semiconductors.

Keywords: Photovoltaics; PV panel; data monitoring; drone (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/5/795/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/5/795/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:5:p:795-:d:209547

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().