Data Acquisition Systems for Monitoring and Control of Photovoltaic Generators

This paper aims to describe two intelligent systems, microprocessor based, capable of monitoring, both locally o remotely, more photovoltaic strings. In particular, the electronic board called CS097 helps to detect environmental parameters such as temperature and solar radiation and to calculate average power and energy produced by the solar system, in order to monitor the efficiency and electricity production of the photovoltaic field. It can control up to four photovoltaic strings, acquiring voltage and current values for each string. Transducers, installed on the same board, detect currents lower than 20 amps and voltages lower than 1000 V. The acquired data have a maximum error of 1% compared to true current and voltage values generated by the strings. It’s also provided a galvanic isolation between the measuring circuits and the acquisition ones. The CS083 and CS088 electrical boards, instead, work as an alarm system which indicates a critical condition in case of an electrical continuity loss or a not-justified rapid variation of the voltage read on each string.