A method for increasing the energy output of an already installed solar power plant is provided including at least one first solar panel, which is absorbing sunlight in a first frequency band, wherein a semi-transparent second solar panel, which absorbs light in a second frequency band, is mounted on top of at least one of the at least one first solar panel and connected to a power electronics device of the solar power plant including at least one solar inverter, wherein the first and second frequency bands do not or only partially overlap such that the second solar panel allows at least a part of the light of the first frequency band to pass.

The invention contributes to combat climate change by enabling the operation of a photovoltaic (PV) plant at high performance by providing based on the typically available metering a more or less topology agnostic automated set-up. Additional information can also be used such as sun positions and/or being designed for nominal powers. The invention relates to a method for determining performance deviation of a PV configuration, only taking electrical measurements into account thus excluding irradiance data. In addition, a method is provided for detecting underperformance within a PV plant with high accuracy. The invention also relates to a method for determining long-term degradation of a PV installation.

Methods for arc detection in a system including one or more photovoltaic generators, one or more photovoltaic power devices and a system power device and/or a load connectible to the photovoltaic generators and/or the photovoltaic power devices. The methods may measure voltage, current, and/or power delivered to the load or system power device, and the methods may measure voltage noise or current noise within the photovoltaic system. The methods may periodically, and/or in response to detecting noise, reduce an electrical parameter such as current or voltage in order to extinguish an arc. The methods may compare one or more measurements to one or more thresholds to detect arcing, and upon a comparison indicating that arcing is or was present, an alarm condition may be set.

Methods for arc detection in a system including one or more photovoltaic generators, one or more photovoltaic power devices and a system power device and/or a load connectible to the photovoltaic generators and/or the photovoltaic power devices. The methods may measure voltage, current, and/or power delivered to the load or system power device, and the methods may measure voltage noise or current noise within the photovoltaic system. The methods may periodically, and/or in response to detecting noise, reduce an electrical parameter such as current or voltage in order to extinguish an arc. The methods may compare one or more measurements to one or more thresholds to detect arcing, and upon a comparison indicating that arcing is or was present, an alarm condition may be set.

A photovoltaic system comprising an inverter adapted to convert a DC power supplied by photovoltaic modules of a photovoltaic generator via power cables to said inverter into an AC current for an AC power supply grid, wherein the inverter has a base station connected by means of the power cables to the module level devices which are provided to monitor and/or to control associated photovoltaic modules of the photovoltaic generator, wherein if the inverter does not receive sufficient energy from the photovoltaic generator and the AC power supply grid, a controller is adapted to activate a deadlock prevention mode of an energy supply unit connected to the inverter where the inverter receives energy from the energy supply unit such that the base station of the inverter is able to continue to transmit permission to operate, PTO, signals via the power cables to the module level devices of the photovoltaic generator.

A photovoltaic system comprising an inverter adapted to convert a DC power supplied by photovoltaic modules of a photovoltaic generator via power cables to said inverter into an AC current for an AC power supply grid, wherein the inverter has a base station connected by means of the power cables to the module level devices which are provided to monitor and/or to control associated photovoltaic modules of the photovoltaic generator, wherein if the inverter does not receive sufficient energy from the photovoltaic generator and the AC power supply grid, a controller is adapted to activate a deadlock prevention mode of an energy supply unit connected to the inverter where the inverter receives energy from the energy supply unit such that the base station of the inverter is able to continue to transmit permission to operate, PTO, signals via the power cables to the module level devices of the photovoltaic generator.

The present invention relates to an electronic circuit for photovoltaic modules, which circuit ensures that the magnitude of the reverse voltage of each solar cell in a solar module does not exceed a particular value at any time. The problem solved by the invention is that of ensuring that the electrical voltage of each solar cell string within the photovoltaic module does not fall below a particular value.

A ground-fault detecting device includes: a first detecting module, having a first input terminal, a second input terminal, and a third input terminal coupled to a first-phase electric power, a second-phase electric power, and a third-phase electric power on an AC side of a photovoltaic power generating system respectively, for sampling voltages of the first-phase electric power, the second-phase electric power, and the third-phase electric power to generate a first sampled voltage, a second sampled voltage, and a third sampled voltage respectively; and a controller, coupled to the first detecting module, for determining if a ground-fault occurs in the AC side before the photovoltaic power generating system is connected to a grid according to the first sampled voltage, the second sampled voltage, and the third sampled voltage; wherein the controller generates an alarm signal when the ground-fault occurs in the AC side.

A ground-fault detecting device includes: a first detecting module, having a first input terminal, a second input terminal, and a third input terminal coupled to a first-phase electric power, a second-phase electric power, and a third-phase electric power on an AC side of a photovoltaic power generating system respectively, for sampling voltages of the first-phase electric power, the second-phase electric power, and the third-phase electric power to generate a first sampled voltage, a second sampled voltage, and a third sampled voltage respectively; and a controller, coupled to the first detecting module, for determining if a ground-fault occurs in the AC side before the photovoltaic power generating system is connected to a grid according to the first sampled voltage, the second sampled voltage, and the third sampled voltage; wherein the controller generates an alarm signal when the ground-fault occurs in the AC side.

A method (400) of capturing and processing electroluminescence (EL) images (1910) of a PV array (40) is disclosed herein. In a described embodiment, the method 400 includes controlling the aerial vehicle (20) to fly along a flight path to capture EL images (1910) of corresponding PV array subsections (512b) of the PV array (40), deriving respective image quality parameters from at least some of the captured EL images, dynamically adjusting a flight speed of the aerial vehicle along the flight path, based on the respective image quality parameters for capturing the EL images (1910) of the PV array subsections (512b), extracting a plurality of frames (1500) of the PV array subsection (512b) from the EL images (1910); determining a reference frame having a highest image quality of the PV array subsection (512b) from among the extracted frames (2100); performing image alignment of the extracted frames (2100) to the reference frame to generate image aligned frames (2130), and processing the image aligned frames (2130) to produce an enhanced image (2140) of the PV array subsection (512b) having a higher resolution than the reference frame. A system, image processing device, and aerial vehicle for the method thereof are also disclosed.