ABOUT AID4PV

AID4PV is a Research & Innovation (R&I) project commencing 01 June 2021 and will be running for 30 months. The project team comprises 3 organisations from 3 countries. The project coordinator is TSK, based in Spain. The project name, AID4PV, is a shortened form of the long title: UAV-based decision-making and modular approach to support PV plant diagnosis using EL, RGB, IRT imagery, correlated with electrical data analysis and advanced reporting and geovisualization.

SUMMARY

The efficiency and profitability of photovoltaic (PV) plants are highly controlled by their operation and maintenance (O&M) procedures. For example, an 18MWp plant with an availability of 99% (1% caused by uncontrolled failures) can cause economic losses up to 156K€/year. Today, effective diagnosis of any possible fault of PV plants, remains a technical and economic challenge, especially when dealing with large-scale PV plants. Currently, PV plant monitoring is carried out by either electrical performance measurements or image processing. The former presents limited fault detection ability, it is costly and time-consuming and incapable for fast identification of the physical location of the fault. In the same token, Infrared Thermography (IRT) imaging has been used for the characterization of PV module failures but their setup and processing are rather complex, and an experienced human operator is required. Additionally, Electroluminescence (EL) image analysis is a new method, which can be used to complement the defects obtained by IRT but is still used in laboratory conditions. Moreover, the processing of color images (Red-Green-Blue images, RGB hereinafter) can be used to complement the processing of IRT images. So EL, RGB, IRT imagery and electrical data analysis can be used for a full characterization of the PV plant.

This project aims to investigate, develop and demonstrate in operational environment an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) decision-making and modular approach to support PV plant diagnosis using EL, RGB, and IRT imagery, correlated with electrical data analysis. The results will be presented in an advanced reporting and geovisualization platform including geospatial analysis and visualization tools. The decision-making capabilities will be also investigated, adding the possibility to perform predefined actuations by the UAV-platform to perform remedy actions minimizing the timing since an anomaly is detected and certain actions are carried out. A very high-level view of the project is presented in the figure below.

FUNDING

The AID4PV project is supported under the umbrella of SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 Additional Joint Call by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) in Spain, the General Secretariat for Research and Technology of Greece (GSRT) and the Research and Innovation Foundation in Cyprus (RIF). The SOLAR-ERA.NET Cofund 2 Action is supported by funding from the European Union‘s HORIZON 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant Agreement N° 786483)