Fault Detection Classification and Prote PDF

FAULT DETECTION, CLASSIFICATION AND
PROTECTION IN SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAYS
A Dissertation Presented
by
Ye Zhao
to
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the field of
Electrical Engineering
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
August 2015
Acknowledgments
First of all, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my research advisor,
Prof. Brad Lehman, who gave me this great research opportunity. I am heartily
thankful to Prof. Lehman for his tireless guidance, extraordinary patience and
constant encouragement during my doctoral journey. His knowledge, creativity
and passion not only inspire me during my graduate studies, but also enlighten
my future career. Without his persistent help, this dissertation would not have
been possible.
I would like to thank my committee members, Professor Jennifer Dy and Dr. Peng
Li who examine my dissertation and provide me so many valuable suggestions.
I am grateful to Mersen USA Newburyport-MA, LLC for the research grant that
funded my work for all these years. I would like to thank the people at Mersen, Dr.
Jean-François de Palma, Roy Ball, Jerry Mosesian, Ed Knapp, Craig McKenzie
and Robert Lyons, who gave me valuable suggestions and great help in my research.
In addition, I sincerely thank the people at Mersen France SB SAS, including, but
not limited to, Thierry Arnaud, Matthieu Laroche, and Andras Pozsgay for their
kind support during my internship in Annecy Le Vieux, France. Special thanks
go to Florent Balboni who offered me great support on the solar photovoltaic
experiments in this dissertation.
I am very fortunate to meet great friends during my graduate studies in Boston.
I would like to thank all my colleagues from the power electronics research group:
ii
Song Chen, Renato Nakagomi, Chung-Ti Hsu, Stephanie Quinn, Su Sheng, Qian
Sun, Jen-Hung Huang, Dawood Talebi, Yue Zheng and Prof. Dorin O. Neacsu,
who provided me with their friendly help. I would like to thank my friends Chenfu
Guo, Gen Wang, Haixiao Yan, Xia Li, Boyang Hou, Kaiyu Zhao, Zijun Yao, Chao
Chen, Yue Huang, Mert Korkalı, Liuxi (Calvin) Zhang and many more, for having
numerous memorable moments in my life.
I am also grateful to Lindsay Sorensen for her advice about writing and proofread
of my publications.
Finally, I am grateful to all my family members, especially my wife, Ling Yang,
my son, Luke Zhao, my father, Heping Zhao, my mother, Ling Li, and my father-
in-law, Zhongqing Yang for always believing in me and encouraging me to do my
best. All of their love, support, and sacrifices over these past years gave me the
strength and determination to make my dreams come true.
iii
Contents
List of Figures vii
List of Tables x
List of Acronyms xi
Abstract xiv
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Dissertation Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Literature Review 11
2.1 Overview of Faults in Solar PV Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Protection Gap of Conventional Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Ground Fault Detection Interrupters . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Overcurrent Protection Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Existing Fault Detection, Classification and Location Solutions . . . 19
2.3.1 Quantitative-Model Based Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.1.1 Current-Voltage (I-V) Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.1.2 Performance Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.1.3 Performance Ratio (PR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.1.4 Capture Loss Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.2 Process-History Based Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.2.1 Statistical Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3.2.2 Machine Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.3.3 Signal-Processing Based Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3.3.1 Dc Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI) . . . . . . 29
2.3.3.2 Insulation Resistance Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.3.3.3 Residual Current Detector (RCD) . . . . . . . . . . 32
iv
Contents v
2.3.3.4 Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) . . . . . . . . 34

2.3.3.5 Spread Spectrum Time Domain Reflectometry (SSTDR) 36
2.3.3.6 Infrared (IR) Thermography . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
2.3.3.7 Internal Series Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.4 Existing Fault Protection Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 Fault Studies in a Commercial-Scale PV Laboratory 42

3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Simulation of Line-Line Faults in PV systems . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.1 Typical Grid-Connected PV Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.2.2 Simulation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.2.3 Fault Analysis using I-V Curves and MPPT Effects . . . . . 47
3.2.4 PV Dynamic Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.5 Fault Evolution in Time Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.6 More Simulation Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3 Experimental Setup in the PV Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.4.1 Line-Line Fault with 2-Module Difference (LL-2 ) . . . . . . 60
3.4.4 More Experimental Results and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4 Fault Detection Using Outlier Detection Rules 70

4.1 Features for Fault Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.1.1 String Current . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.1.2 String Current Change Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.2 Proposed ODR for PV systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2.1 Statistical ODR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.2.2 Local Outlier Factor (LOF ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.3 Fault Detection in the PV Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.1 Statistical ODR Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.1.1 ODR on String Current i . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.3.1.2 ODR on String Current Change Rate di/dt . . . . 80
4.3.1.3 False alarms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4.3.2 LOF Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
4.3.3 More Results under Various Solar Irradiance . . . . . . . . . 86
4.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5 Fault Classification Using Machine-Learning Algorithms 92

Contents vi
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.1.1 Existing Solutions and their limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.1.2 Research Contributions Obtained in this Chapter . . . . . . 95
5.2 Fundamentals of Machine-Learning Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.1 Fundamentals of Machine Learning Techniques . . . . . . . . 97
5.2.2 Machine Learning Techniques in PV Systems . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3 Improved Data Visualization using Normalized Parameters . . . . . 101
5.4 Graph-based Semi-supervised Learning (GBSSL) Algorithm in So-
lar PV Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.4.1 Introduction of Graph Data in PV Arrays . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.4.2 Detailed GBSSL Algorithm for FDC . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
5.5 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.5.1 Simulated PV Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
5.5.2 Faults in PV Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
5.5.3 Simulation of GBSSL for FDC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
5.5.4 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
5.5.5 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
5.6 FDC Experiments in PV Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.6.1 Experimental Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
5.6.2 Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5.6.3 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
5.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
6 Conclusions and Future Work 131

6.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.2 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Bibliography 142
List of Publications 156

List of Figures
1.1 Fire hazards in PV installations caused by faults. . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 Excessive data are available in PV installations. . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Schematic diagram of a grid-connected PV system, including vari-
ous types of faults in the PV array. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Common faults in PV arrays (dc side). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2 Illustrative example of GFDI in grounded PV systems [12]. . . . . . 13
2.3 The first undetected ground fault between a grounded current-
carrying conductor (i.e., the negative conductor) and the equipment-
grounding conductor [3]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4 The second ground fault between a ungrounded current-carrying
conductor (i.e., the positive conductor) and the equipment-grounding
conductor [3]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.5 The photo and melting time vs. current curve of fuses. . . . . . . . 18
2.6 Overview of general solutions to increase PV-system reliability and
safety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.7 The I-V curve reveals salient PV characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.8 Performance comparison of a PV system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.9 System overview of PV fault detection using performance compar-
ison [27] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.10 Performance ratio in a grid-connected PV system. . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.11 Daily, weekly, and monthly PR values for a PV system for 2001 [31]. 25
2.12 Supervised learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.13 The dc arc experimental setup at Northeastern University. . . . . . 30
2.14 Normal vs. series dc-arc current in frequency domain. . . . . . . . . 31
2.15 Insulation resistance monitoring for ground-fault detection in un-
grounded PV systems [31] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.16 Concept of differential relays for internal fault detection [51] . . . . 33
2.17 RCD application in solar PV arrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2.18 Schematic diagram for TDR setup in the PV field. [52] . . . . . . . 35
2.19 Step input and the reflected waveforms with cable. [53] . . . . . . . 35
2.20 TDR on open-circuit and short-circuit PV strings (Use a negative
step input). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
vii
List of Figures viii
2.21 Fault detection in PV arrays using Infrared (IR) thermography. . . 37

2.22 The equivalent circuit of the one-diode model for a PV module . . . 38
3.1 Line-line faults in a PV array with a centralized PV inverter. . . . . 45

3.2 Schematic diagram of the simulated PV system. . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.3 Simulated I-V curves of the PV array under line-line faults (LL-2
and LL-5 ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.4 Simulated vpv vs. gpv curves of PV strings under normal, and line-
line faults, such as LL-1 to LL-5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.5 Simulated PV string current ij (j = 1 to 12) evolution during LL-2. 52
3.6 The photo of the PV laboratory located in France. . . . . . . . . . 55
3.7 Schematic diagram of the PV laboratory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.8 The photo of major experimental equipments. . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.9 The photo of PV monitoring board [71]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.10 Experimental results of LL-2 (2-module LL fault). . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.1 Univariate normal distribution of PV string currents {xi }. . . . . . 75

4.2 Apply statistical ODR on string current i1 to i6 of LL-2 experimen-
tal results (which cannot be cleared by fuses). . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.3 Apply statistical ODR on di1 /dt to di6 /dt of LL-2 experimental
results (which cannot be cleared by fuses). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
4.4 False alarms caused by ODR on string current . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.5 False alarms caused by ODR on current change rate . . . . . . . . . 83
4.6 Fault detection using LOF on experimental results of LL-2 and
normal conditions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.7 LL-2 under medium solar irradiance (∼ 410W/m2 ). . . . . . . . . . 87
4.8 LL-2 under low solar irradiance (∼ 170W/m2 ). . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.9 False alarms may be caused by partial shading on PV strings. . . . 90
5.1 Limitation of supervised learning: SVM model trained in summer

will not work properly in winter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2 Simplified flowchart of machine learning techniques: (a) supervised,
(b) unsupervised learning, (c) semi-supervised learning. . . . . . . . 98
5.3 Overview of the proposed fault detection and classification (FDC)
model for PV systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.4 The overlapping MPPs of a PV array over a wide range of irradiance
and temperature. This is difficult for FDC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
5.5 VN ORM vs. IN ORM of a PV array over a wide range of irradiance
and temperature. This is better for FDC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
5.6 A graph data consisting of edges and nodes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
List of Figures ix
5.7 An illustrative example of GBSSL for PV: (a) Initial labels x1 and
x2 with unlabeled PV data. (b) Unlabeled data are classified by
GBSSL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.8 Overview of the proposed GBSSL model for FDC in PV sys-tems. . 107
5.9 Line-line faults and open-circuit faults in a simulated PV system. . 111
5.10 An illustrative example: new data points x1 and x3 will be classi-
fied as classes NORMAL and OPEN respectively, by the proposed
GBSSL model. Similarly, data points x2 and x4 will be classified as
LL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
5.11 New fault data: “OPEN3” and “OPEN4” can be identified success-
fully, but “LL 10% Rf =0”, “LL 10% Rf =10”, “LL 20% Rf =0” and
“LL 20% Rf =10” may be difficult to detect since they are overlap-
ping with “NORMAL”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
5.12 Schematic diagram of the experimental PV system. . . . . . . . . . 124
5.13 Photo of the experimental PV system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.14 Initial labels for GBSSL in experiments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
5.15 GBSSL results of NORMAL, LL and OPEN1. . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
6.1 Schematic diagram of a grid-connected PV system, including con-

ventional GFDI and OCPD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
List of Tables
2.1 Maximum allowable ground current detection settings [15]. . . . . . 14

2.2 Summary of existing PV fault detection, classification and location 20
2.3 Summary of existing PV fault protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.1 Simulation results of various line-line faults at String #1 under STC 54

3.2 Main Parameters of Experimental PV Laboratory . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.3 Summary of Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.1 A brief comparison between the statistical ODR and LOF in PV

fault detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.1 Summary results of fault detection and classification . . . . . . . . . 121

5.2 Experimental PV Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
5.3 Experimental Results of Fault Detection and Classification . . . . . 129
x
List of Acronyms
AFCI Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter
ANN Artificial Neural Network
BNN Bayesian Neural Network
DWT Discrete Wavelet Transform
FDC Fault Detection and Classification
FFT Fast Fourier Transform
GBSSL Graph-Based Semi-Supervised Learning
GFDI Ground Fault Detection Interrupter
GUI Graphical User Interface
IR Infrared
I-V Current vs. Voltage
LL Line-Line fault
LOF Local Outlier Factor
MPP Maximum Power Point
MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking
xi
List of Acronyms xii
NEC National Electrical Code
OCPD Overcurrent Protection Device
ODR Outlier Detection Rule
PR Performance Ratio
PV Photovoltaic
RCD Residual Current Detector
SSL Semi-Supervised Learning
SSTDR Spread Spectrum Time Domain Reflectometry
STC Standard Test Ccondition
SVM Support Vector Machine
TDR Time Domain Reflectometry
UV Ultraviolet
Dedicated to Ling and Luke
xiii
Abstract
Fault analysis and fault detection are important to the efficiency, safety and relia-
bility of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Despite the fact that PV systems have
no moving parts and usually require low maintenance, they are still subject to
various fault conditions. Especially for PV arrays (dc side), it is difficult to shut
down PV modules completely during faults, since they are always energized by
sunlight in daytime. Furthermore, conventional series-parallel PV configurations
increase voltage and current ratings, leading to higher risk of large fault currents
or dc arcs.
This dissertation reviews the challenges and limitations of existing fault detection
and protection solutions in solar PV arrays. For the first time, a 35kW commercial-
scale PV laboratory is designed to study faults under real-working conditions and
to discover the “blind spots” in conventional fault protection schemes. It is shown
that the line-line fault may not be detectable by traditional overcurrent protection
devices (OCPD) under certain conditions. Therefore, the fault may remain in the
PV system as a safety concern.
To eliminate the detection “blind spot,” outlier rules, such as statistical outlier
detection rules (ODRs) and local outlier factors (LOFs) are proposed in PV-string
monitoring systems. To further identify the fault types (or so-called fault classifica-
tion), machine learning algorithms are studied in solar PV arrays. To overcome the
drawbacks of supervised learning algorithms, a semi-supervised learning algorithm
is proposed. The dissertation demonstrates the effectiveness in fault detection and
classification in both simulation and experimental results.
xiv
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Motivation and Background
Fault analysis, detection and protection are essential to prevent unexpected events
in solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. Despite the fact that solar PV systems have no
moving parts and usually require low maintenance, they are still subject to various
failures or faults along the PV arrays, power conditioning units, batteries, wiring,
and utility interconnections [1, 2]. Especially for PV arrays (dc side), it is difficult
to shut down PV modules completely during faults, since they are energized by
sunlight in daytime. Furthermore, PV is scalable and modular technology that
can build a PV power plant by connecting a large number of PV modules in series
and parallel configuration. Once PV modules are electrically connected, any fault
among them can affect the entire system performance. This means the PV system
1
Chapter 1. Introduction 2
is only as robust as its weakest link (e.g., the faulted PV components). In a large
PV array, it may become difficult to properly detect or identify a fault, which can
remain hidden in the PV system until the whole system breaks down. In addition,
conventional series-parallel PV configurations increase voltage and current ratings,
leading to higher risk of large fault currents or dc arcs.
Due to faults occurring within PV arrays, several fire hazards have been reported
in PV installations [3–6]. Fig. 1.1(a) shows the results of a fire hazard in a 383 kW
PV array in Bakersfield, California in 2009 [3, 4]. Another fire hazard is illustrated
in Fig. 1.1(b), which occurred in a 1 M W PV power plant in Mount Holly, North
Carolina, in 2011 [6]. In these cases, the fault remained unnoticed and hidden in
the system until the hazard caused catastrophic fire. These fire hazards not only
show the weakness in conventional fault detection and protection schemes in PV
arrays, but also reveal the urgent need of a better way to prevent such issues.
Nowadays, due to the growing capacity of PV systems, there has been a pro-
liferation of power conversion units, monitoring systems, protection devices and
communication equipment being added to PV installations. As a result, exces-
sive PV data becomes available (both instantaneous and historical). For example,
as shown in Fig. 1.2 as a typical grid-connected PV system, various PV data are
available from the weather station, PV arrays, PV inverters and utility grid. These
PV data are mainly used to evaluate the PV system performance and calculate
the energy losses over long periods of times. Although fault detection has been
developed using historical PV data, it requires a long process time (at least a
Chapter 1. Introduction PV Solar Roo 3
Incident: PV Solar Fire

When: April 16, 2011
Where: Rooftop of Manufacturing
Facility in Mount Holly, NC
What: Fire damaged or destroyed
solar panels, combiner box 2F
(fire), combiner box 2A (arching),
and roofing.
(a) Fire hazards in a 383kW PV array, in Bakersfield, California, in 2009 [3].
5,252
(b) Fire hazards in a 1,208kW PV array, in Mount Holly, North Carolina, in
2011 [6]. 135 k
Figure 1.1: Fire hazards in PV installations caused by faults.
few hours or days) that may hinder the fault detection response and effectiveness.
Hence, it is necessary to develop more responsive fault-detection algorithms that
can make better use of these readily available PV data.

PV monitoring
Weather station PV array
Pyranometer
...
PV module
Temperature
sensor ...
Wh meter
Utility grid
PV inverter
...
...
Available PV data:
Array-level voltage,
Weather String-level voltage, current, power, current, power,
Ac energy output
information status of protection devices status of protection
devices
Figure 1.2: Excessive data are available in PV installations.
1.2 Problem Statement
Fig. 1.3 demonstrates a typical grid-connected PV system including a PV array
with a number of PV modules in series and parallel connection, a central PV in-
verter with maximum power point tracker (MPPT), overcurrent protection devices
(OCPD) and ground fault detection interrupters (GFDI). Several types of fault
could happen inside PV arrays, such as line-line faults, ground faults, open-circuit
faults, and mismatch faults. Among these faults, line-line faults and ground faults
are the most common faults in solar PV arrays, which potentially involve large
fault current or dc arcs. As shown in Fig. 1.3, conventional fault detection and
protection methods usually add OCPD (e.g., fuses) and GFDI within PV compo-
nents [7] to prevent PV components from large fault current. However, it has been
shown that certain faults in PV arrays may not be cleared by OCPD or GFDI due
to non-linear output characteristics of PV arrays, PV current-limiting nature, high
fault impedances, low irradiance conditions, PV grounding schemes, or MPPT of
PV inverters [1, 8]. This difficulty brings “blind spots” in the protection schemes,
leading to reduced system efficiency, accelerated system aging, dc arcs and similar
fire hazards reported previously in [3, 8].
Centralized inverter
GFDI
Pos. + ipv Ground
fault
String 1 String 2 String 9 String 10 Utility
#6 grid
Iback #7
Open
circuit
#8 Gsys
I1 I2 I9 I10 Mismatch
fauls
Ig
F1
vpv PV module
Line-line
fault
#1 F2 F6 Series fuse for
Ground overcurrent protection
#3 fault
F3
Rf F4
#2  Fault #1: Line-line fault with Rf
Double  Fault #2: Line-line fault
ground
#4 fault  Fault #3: Single ground fault
 Fault #4: Double ground fault
F5
 Fault #5: Ground fault
 Fault #6: Ground fault
 Fault #7: Open-circuit fault
 Fault #8: Mismatch fault
Neg. _
Ground #5
fault
Figure 1.3: Schematic diagram of a grid-connected PV system, including

various types of faults in the PV array.
1.3 Dissertation Organization
Motivated by the previously discussed research problems, this dissertation aims
to analyze and explain the limitations of conventional OCPD and to propose new
fault detection and classification methods. Therefore, we can eliminate the fault
detection gap in solar PV arrays. Specifically, the dissertation is organized as
follows.
The results for the literature review are presented in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 dis-
cusses the fault experimental results in the PV laboratory. Chapter 3 focuses
on the proposed fault detection methods using statistical outlier detection rules
(ODRs) and local outlier factors (LOFs). To classify the fault types in PV ar-
rays, Chapter 5 develops the machine learning algorithms that detect the fault
occurrence, and also classify the fault types. In Chapter 6, a brief summary of the
research results is presented and future research works are addressed.
Chapter 2: Literature review
• The existing fault detection and classification solutions for solar PV
arrays are studied.
• The benefits and drawbacks of existing approaches are explored and
compared.
Chapter 3: Fault Studies in a Commercial-Scale PV Laboratory

• The fault behavior in a large grid-connected PV system consisting
of more than 100 PV modules is simulated and analyzed.
• The fault experiments are implemented in a commercial-scale PV
system, which is able to create and record faults.
• The transient response and post-fault behavior of a PV system are
studied during the fault evolution, including PV array, overcurrent
protection devices (OCPD, i.e., fuses) and grid-connected PV in-
verter.
• The success and failure of fault clearance by OCPD (i.e., fuses) are
analyzed.
• The challenges to fault detection and protection and their blind
spots are discussed.
Chapter 4: Fault Detection Using Outlier Detection Rules
• Statistical outlier detection rules are proposed for real-time fault
detection on PV-string level, such as 3σ rule, Hampel identifier and
Boxplot rule. The results of statistical outlier detection rules and
their limitations (such as false alarms) are discussed.
• The proposed fault detection algorithms have been integrated with
commercial products using Matlab graphical user interface (GUI).

• Another method using local outlier factor (LOF) is used and im-
plemented for solar PV arrays. The performance of the statistical
ODR and LOF are discussed and compared.
Chapter 5: Fault Classification Using Machine-Learning Algorithms
• The limitations of supervised learning algorithms in for PV fault
detection and classification are explained.
• Normalized parameters are created as the classification features,
which can result in better data clustering.
• A graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithm is proposed for
fault detection and classification.
• The proposed method is evaluated in PV simulation.
• The proposed method is implemented and verified on experimental
PV data.
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Future Research
• The conclusions and future research are presented.
1.4 Contributions
This dissertation demonstrates several major research contributions and scientific
advancements over the existing solutions.

Contribution 1 : Discovery of OCPD “blind spots” in PV systems. The fault tran-
sient response and post-fault behavior in PV arrays (dc side) are
implemented and then demostrated in a 35kW, 500Vdc commercial-
scale PV laboratory, including PV array, overcurrent protection
devices (OCPD, i.e., fuses) and grid-connected PV inverter. Mean-
while, “blind spots” in conventional fault detection and protec-
tion schemes are discovered and explained in both simulation and
experimental results.
Contribution 2 : Outlier detection rules are proposed for fault detection in PV ar-
rays. New fault detection using outlier detection rules are pro-
posed to fill the fault detection gap of PV systems, which are
only based on the PV-string current measurement. Compared
to traditional methods, the proposed methods have several ad-
vantages, such as no requirement of weather information, quick
response and easy implementation.
Contribution 3 : Machine learning algorithms are proposed and developed for fault
detection and classification in solar PV arrays. The proposed
machine learning algorithm focuses on semi-supervised learning
(SSL) algorithms, showing several advantages over existing su-
pervised learning algorithms. The proposed method is able to be
integrated within most PV inverter topologies in order to take

advantage of readily available measurements in existing PV sys-
tems.
Chapter 2
Literature Review
This chapter presents the literature review of various types of faults in solar PV
arrays, protection gaps of conventional solutions, as well as existing approaches of
fault detection, classification, location and protection solutions. The benefits and
limitations of these existing approaches are also explored and compared.
2.1 Overview of Faults in Solar PV Arrays
A PV system may be subjected to a variety of faults, including those in PV array,
power conditioning unit, and utility grid. This dissertation focuses on PV arrays,
which exhibit non-linear and limited current vs. voltage (I-V) characteristics that
are differ from other traditional dc or ac power sources. Therefore, faults in PV
arrays require careful evaluation and special consideration. As shown in Fig. 2.1,
11
Chapter 2. Literature Review 12
Faults in solar PV arrays
Dc arcs
Ground Line-line Open-circuit Mismatch

faults faults faults faults
May cause large

fault current
Figure 2.1: Common faults in PV arrays (dc side).
a variety of faults are commonly found inside the PV array. In this dissertation, it
is considered that the PV array is the only source of fault current, since most PV
inverters provide galvanic isolation between PV arrays and utility grids. Among
these faults, ground faults and line-line faults have the most potential to cause
large fault current through the fault path [9]. Without proper fault detection or
protection, they could cause severe problems in the PV array, such as dc arcs and
even fire hazards [3]. In addition, series or parallel dc arcs may occur along these
four fault categories [10]. Especially for the series arcs, since they behave similar
to inserted variable resistance, they may be difficult to identify or extinguish [11].

In 1989, I joined the PV industry as a full-time employee at through this bond on their way from the ground-fault point
the Southwest Technology Development Institute. One of my back to the driving source—the PV module or array (see
first projects was to develop prototype hardware that could be illustration). When the current in this bond exceeds the rated
used to meet the new Section 690.5 requirement. In the 1987 0.5 or 1 amp, the circuit breaker trips to the open position.
Code, the requirements for this fire-reduction device were to: This action interrupts the fault current, even when the fault is

Ground-Fault Current Paths
Positive
DC Inverter
Ground Fault
Disconnect
Metal Conduit
PV
Module DC Bonding
Connection and
0.5 – 1 amp GFPD
Fuse or Circuit
Negative Breaker
Ground
Fault Equipment
Grounding
Conductors
DC Grounding
Electrode
Example positive conductor faulted to PV module frame. Path of positive ground-fault currents—return to source.
Example negative conductor faulted to metal conduit. Path of negative ground-fault currents—parallel negative current paths.
Note: All ground-fault currents must flow through the DC bonding connection.
Any time positive or negative ground-fault currents exceed ground-fault fuse/breaker rating,
that device opens and ground-fault currents are interrupted.
102 Figure 2.2: Illustrative example

home of GFDI
power 123in grounded
/ february PV systems
& march 2008 [12].
2.2 Protection Gap of Conventional Solutions
Conventional fault detection and protection uses ground-fault detection inter-
rupters (GFDI) and overcurrent protection devices (OCPD), as required by Na-
tional Electrical Code (NEC) [7]. Their basic functions and limitations are intro-
duced as follows.
2.2.1 Ground Fault Detection Interrupters
Ground fault detection interrupters (GFDI) (sometimes also called ground fault
protection devices, GFPD) are a conventional solution to detect and interrupt
ground faults in PV arrays in grounded PV systems. As shown in Fig. 2.2, the PV
system is system-grounded as the negative conductors are intentionally grounded

Table 2.1: Maximum allowable ground current detection settings [15].
Maximum ground-fault current detecting

Device dc rating (kW)
settings (Amperes)
0 – 25 1
25 – 50 2
50 – 100 3
100 – 250 4
>250 5
[13]. Another grounding in Fig. 2.2 is called equipment grounding: non-current
carrying conductive parts, such as metallic module frames, equipment, and con-
ductor enclosures, should be grounded [7, 14].
A small fuse (e.g., 1A) is usually integrated inside PV inverters to detect ground
faults by sensing the ground-fault leakage current. The UL 1741 standard requires
that the settings of GFDI as given in Table 2.1 [15].
In Fig. 2.2, no matter whether there is a positive ground fault (in red) or a negative
ground fault (in blue), the ground-fault current in the closed fault path will always
return through the GFDI. When the fault current is large enough, the GFDI (e.g.,
fuse) will be blown. Then the PV inverter will shut down and the PV array will
be de-energized into open-circuit conditions.
However, “blind spots” of GFDI have been discovered in [8, 16] in a double-ground
fault case, which is believed to be the cause of the Bakersfield PV fire hazards that
have been reported in [3]. In the double-ground fault in the Bakersfield fire, two
ground faults occurred one after another. The first ground happened between the
negative conductor and the ground, which is illustrated in Fig. 2.3. The fault
because both the grounded conductor and the EGC have sim- The perfect storm. Grounded source-circuit conductors make
ilar resistance back to the common connection point, which up one quarter to one half of all current-carrying conductors in
is at the GFP fuse. a PV system, and existing GFP detectors are blind to them if
Another way to look at this is that if the conductors are they are set higher than about 3 amps. Since the GFP device
sized properly, Ohm’s Law dictates the current flow in the EGC. cannot see a fault in the grounded conductor for larger systems,
If the circuit to the inverter has a 2% voltage drop and half the operation continues even though the status of the system has
drop is on the grounded conductor side of the circuit, then gone from “safe” to “fire hazard.” Invariably, one fault eventu-
there is a 1% voltage
Chapter 2. drop in this sideReview
Literature of the system, or a drop of ally results in a second fault. If the next fault15
occurs in a large
3 volts on a 300 Vdc system. According to one of the expressions feeder circuit carrying 100 amps or more, c o n t i n u e d o n pa g e 6 6
28-string subarray
STAGE 1: Undetected first fault 140 amps
Inverter dc input
31-string subarray
300 A fuse
150 amps
300 A fuse
56-string subarray @ 1,000 W/m2 280 amps
600 A fuse
F1
F2
To inverter
section
140 amps
F56
150 amps
12 A fuses
C o u r t e sy B ro o ks E ng i n ee r i n g
5 amps
277.5 amps
2.5 amps
4 A GFDI fuse
5 amps 2.5 amps
2.5 amps
0 amps 2.5 amps
Fault-to-ground in
grounded current-carrying conductor
Figure 1 An undetected fault between a grounded current-carrying conductor and the equipment-grounding conductor will
Figure 2.3: The first undetected ground fault between a grounded current-
persist indefinitely without tripping the GFP. Absent proper commissioning procedures, this first fault can exist from the time of
carrying conductor (i.e., the negative conductor) and the equipment-grounding
installation forward.
conductor [3].
64 S o l a r P r o | February/March 2011
current remained smaller than the GFDI setting so that the fault was hidden in
the PV system.
In Fig. 2.4, the second ground fault occurred between the ungrounded current-
carrying conductor (i.e., the positive conductor) and the equipment-grounding
conductor. This resulted in a high-magnitude ground-fault current so that the
GFDI fuse was quickly blown in the inverter. Unfortunately, the first and the
second ground fault points contributed to a closed fault path so that the high-
magnitude fault current flowed continuously without interruption. Since the fault
current was much higher than the current rating of the conductors, the fault
current generate excessive heat in the conductor, leading to conductor insulation

The Bakersfield Fire
28-string subarray
STAGE 2: Second fault detected; 76 amps
Inverter dc input
fire starts at approximately 4 pm 31-string subarray

300 A fuse
84 amps
300 A fuse
56-string subarray @ 500 W/m2 152 amps 160 amps
600 A fuse
F1
311 amps
F2
Fault-to-ground
in ungrounded
current-carrying
conductor (where To inverter
expanion joint section
separation occurs)
76 amps
F56
84 amps
12 A fuses
2.7 amps
Cou rte sy B roo ks Eng in ee ri ng
160 amps
Ground fault
2.7 amps 308 amps fuse clears
311 amps
311 amps
0 amps 311 amps
Fault-to-ground in (Red indicates areas with fire damage

grounded current-carrying conductor according to the Bakersfield Fire report)
Figure 2 Thermal expansion in a long conduit run housing PV output-circuit conductors causes an expansion joint to fail and
Figure 2.4: The second ground fault between a ungrounded current-carrying
damage a large (500 MCM) ungrounded output cable. The resulting high-magnitude ground-fault currents quickly clear the
conductor
ground-fault fuse in (i.e., the positive
the inverter. conductor)
After the ground andis lifted
connection the equipment-grounding conductor
at the inverter, the available ground currents return through
the fault in the grounded source-circuit conductor (through [3].the array-bonding hardware and the metal conduit parts) to the fault
in the ungrounded output conductor. Because the grounded conductor is unfused, these high-magnitude fault currents con-
tinue without interruption.
breakdown and fire hazard.
as shown in Figure 2, then the GFP fuse instantly opens, following day as sunlight levels exceeded the condition when
removing the main ground connection on the array. the initial fire occurred.
However, this is exactly what should not happen if there
is
Thealready a fault in the
dangerous array.scenario
fault Now, instead having a large Misleading
ofofdouble-ground faults has Messages
also from
beenthefoundBakersfield
as the Fire
equipment-grounding conductor to carry the fault current, a One might ask, how did such a dangerous situation go unno-
10 or 12 AWG source-circuit conductor has to carry the entire ticed? Until the Bakersfield Fire, very few people believed that
reasons
return of other
current. fire that
This means cases, such as the
the short-circuit PVnow
current solarthis
firesetinof Mount Holly,
events could happen.North
In fact,Carolina
many still believe that
has to return through the point where the first undetected fault this is a “two-fault” event that engineers generally are not
occurred, as shown in Figure 2. Within several seconds that required to design for. I disagree.
in 2011 [6]. In this case, the first ground faultTheremained
conductor can get so hot that the insulation on the conductor
undetected since the
idea that this scenario could repeat itself many times
melts or catches fire. The fire is then driven into whatever flam- is not only plausible, but it is very likely. A dangerous blind
mable
current material
levelis was
in proximity
muchtolower the wire,
thansuchthe
as the flam- ofspot
rating theexists—making
GFDI. Theupsecond one quarter
groundto one half of all large
fault
mable PV module backsheet or any flammable roof materials. system wiring—insofar as it is possible for a first fault to be
As the Bakersfield Fire persisted, it appears that multiple present in a grounded source-circuit conductor yet invisible
occurred
faults occurredafterwards, and wiring,
in the source-circuit trippedwhichthe GFDI.
caused sev- toHowever,
the GFP device.theTheground-fault current
first fault could exist at installation if
eral string fuses to see excessive reverse currents. These fuses proper commissioning tests are not done. Since ground faults
would have been clearing as the sun was beginning to go down, are the most common faults in an array—and 50% of these
could flow continuously in the closed fault path, and therefore, the ground faults
which could have reduced the fault-current flow below the faults may go undetected in the source-circuit conductors on
threshold at which it was capable of sustaining a fire. However, larger PV systems—we have a real problem. The Bakersfield
without
could not corrective action, newEventually,
be cleared. fires could have started
the fire the Fire is very easy to repeat experimentally. Unfortunately, the
occurred.
66 S o l a r Pr o | February/March 2011
2.2.2 Overcurrent Protection Devices
The U.S. National Electrical Code (NEC ) requires that overcurrent protection de-
vices (OCPD) (e.g., fuse) shall be in series with each PV string to protect modules
and wirings from overcurrent caused by the fault [7]. The rating current of OCPD
(In ) shall be no less than 156% of PV modules rated short-circuit current (ISC )
at standard test condition (STC, 1000 W/m2 , 25o C, 1.5 air mass) [7]. Besides, In
should comply with both the UL standard 2579 [17] and European IEC standard
60269-6 [18]. The non-fusing current (Inf ) of PV fuse is required as 1.13 × In (at
least 1.76ISC ), according to IEC standard 60269-6 [18]. The detailed comparison
between NEC, IEC and UL standards about PV fuse selection has been discussed
in [19].
In addition, the fuse has a specific non-linear melting time (the required time to
melt the fuse elements) vs. current characteristics (see Fig. 2.5). Generally, a
larger current above Inf usually requires a shorter melting time. For instance, it
may need a few hours to melt a fuse if the current is only slightly above Inf . If
the PV fault current stays below Inf , the fuse will not be blown and therefore, the
fuse protection gap exists.
For solar PV arrays, since they are the only source of fault current, the magnitude
of the backfed current into the faulted string (Iback ) may be greatly reduced by low
solar irradiance, maximum power point tracker (MPPT), high fault resistance, or
Time in seconds
tmelt
Ifuse Current in Amperes
(a) Solar PV fuse [20]. (b) Illustrative time vs. current curve
Figure 2.5: The photo and melting time vs. current curve of fuses.
small-mismatched fault location [1]. Therefore the fuse protection gap may exist
if the fault current stays below Inf .
2.2.3 Summary
As previously discussed, the protection gap exists in both GFDI and OCPD, when
certain fault scenarios occur inside the PV array. As a result, the fault may not
be cleared successfully, and it can remain undetected in the PV system until the
whole system fails (e.g., fire hazards).
To fill the protection gap of conventional fault detection and protection devices,
various solutions have been proposed using different techniques. These solutions
may depend on PV system grounding and the transformer isolation in PV invert-
ers. As shown in Fig. 2.6, various existing fault detection, classification, protection
and location have been proposed for solar PV arrays to increase the PV system
Fault
Fault detection
classfication
Solar PV arrays
Fault location Fault protection
Figure 2.6: Overview of general solutions to increase PV-system reliability

and safety.
efficiency, safety and reliability. The following part of this chapter summarizes
the existing solutions in each category, and briefly discusses their advantages and
disadvantages.
2.3 Existing Fault Detection, Classification and
Location Solutions
Fault detection is defined as “the indication that something is going wrong in the
monitored system” [21]. In addition to fault detection, fault classification can au-
tomatically identify the type of fault. To further help maintenance people to look
for the fault, fault location can estimate the cable fault location so as to expedite
the system’s recovery from fault. Therefore, fault detection, classification and lo-
cation are essential to monitor and identify unexpected issues in solar PV systems.
Existing solutions are briefly discussed below and summarized in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2: Summary of existing PV fault detection, classification and location
Fault Fault Fault Clas- Fault

Method
Type Detection? sification? Location?
√
Ground GFDI × ×
Faults Insulation √
× ×
resistance monitor
(or line- √
RCD × ×
line fault √ √ √
with TDR
√ √ √
ground SSTDR
√ √
point) I-V curve analysis ×
√
Statistical method × ×
√
OCPD × ×
√
RCD × ×
√ √ √
TDR
√ √
I-V curve analysis ×
Line-line √
Statistical method × ×
faults
Performance √
× ×
comparison
Capture loss √ √
×
analysis
√
Performance ratio × ×
√ √
Machine learning ×
√ √
Open- Performance √
× ×
circuit comparison
faults Capture loss √ √
×
analysis
√
Performance ratio × ×
√ √
Machine learning ×
√ √
Mismatch √
Performance
faults × ×
comparison
√ √
IR thermography ×
Internal series √
× ×
resistance
√ √
Machine learning ×
√
Dc-arc AFCI × ×
√
faults Machine learning × ×
IPV
Normal MPP
ISC
Shunt losses
Mismatch Normal
losses
Series
Line-line losses
fault VPV
Reduced VOC VOC
Figure 2.7: The I-V curve reveals salient PV characteristics.
2.3.1 Quantitative-Model Based Solutions
2.3.1.1 Current-Voltage (I-V) Analysis
Current vs. voltage (I-V) curve analysis can provide most of the operating points
of a PV module, string or array. As illustrated in Fig. 2.7, the I-V curve reveals
salient PV characteristics. Therefore, it is possible to detect and classify PV faults,
such as series losses, shunt losses, mismatch losses, reduced current and reduced
voltage based on I-V characteristics [22–25].
2.3.1.2 Performance Comparison
In addition to fire hazards and safety issues, faults in PV systems may cause a
large amount of energy loss. The energy lost due to PV faults has been analyzed
and categorized in UK domestic PV systems [26] and it was estimated that the
Solar
Temperature
irradiance
Expected PV Actual PV
performance performance
Comparison and fault

detection
Figure 2.8: Performance comparison of a PV system.
annual energy loss was up to 18.9% in PV systems due to faults. Therefore, it is
necessary to monitor PV system performance, study the fault pattern and develop
the fault detection methods.
Performance comparison compares the actual PV performance with the simulated
performance under real-time operation [23, 27]. Recently, performance comparison
has been proposed for fault detection. Generally, it compares the actual perfor-
mance with the expected performance. The fault detection rule is straightforward:
significant difference in produced and measured output performance may indicate
a fault. As shown in Fig. 2.8, the performance evaluation usually has several
components, including weather information such as solar irradiance and tempera-
ture, expected PV performance as a benchmark, actual measured PV performance,
performance comparison and fault detection.

550 A. Drews et al. / Solar Energy 81 (2007) 548–564
Fig. 1. PVSAT-2 overview scheme.

Figure 2.9: System overview of PV fault detection using performance com-
compared daily by the automated failure detectionparison
routine [27]
(FDR) (Stettler et al., 2005). This algorithm detects the
occurrence of a malfunction and identifies typical error
.
patterns that characterize the possible system failure (Sec-
tion 4). Finally, it informs the operator about the system’s
Forperformance
example, and,to prevent
in case energyabout
of a malfunction, andthesubsequent
most financial losses in PV systems, an
likely failure sources.
The irradiance data set can be refined with hourly
automatic PV performance
ground measurements comparison
from distributed has been proposed in [27], which monitors
weather stations
by the method ‘‘kriging-of-differences’’ (KoD) (Betcke
and Beyer, 2004). The potential of the integration of
theground
difference
data has beenbetween the
investigated simulated
in a separate and actual energy yield in real time (see
study (Sec-
tion 3.1.1). KoD has not been applied in the overall routine
for the test phase but will be part of the commercial service
Fig. 2.9).
in the The fault detection system gathers satellite-derived solar irradiance and
future.
3. Simulation of the system’s energy yield

ambient temperature, which are fed into the simulation model to predict the PV’s
The simulation of the expected energy yield is an essen-
tial part in the PVSAT-2 service. Its quality determines the
ACreliability
output power
of the (Psim ). Meanwhile, it monitors
failure detection. Fig. 2. Overviewtheschemeactual
on the applied AC output
methodology power
– from satellite data
Fig. 2 illustrates in a schematic overview the compo- to a simulated PV power output for the automated FDR (Abbreviations:
nents as described in the methodological Sections 3 and G, global; d, diffuse fraction; t, tilted. Symbology, rhombus – input data;
(Pactual
4. The )parts
and compares
of the it withthatPhave
PVSAT-2 procedure sim .been
Four
in general fault categories are: Constant
squares, steps in the method; diamonds, expected maximum uncertainty of
the simulation).
operational use during the test phase are depicted with
the solid-lined elements. The expected energy yield (PAC),
energy
as neededloss, changing
in the energy
FDR, is derived loss, irradiance
from satellite snow coverside.and total blackout.
The dashed-lined elements and Thegray limitation
arrows explain
data (G, d) as shown in the middle chain of the flow chart. how the results of the performed KoD study can be imple-
The major input data to the routines are given on the left mented into the processing chain. Moreover, additional
exists: since it monitors the PV power over a period of time (equivalent to energy
yield), it has a slow response. For example, this fault detection method may take
at least one day.

Reference PR= Yf / Yr
solar cell
or Irradiance
conditions
pyranometer To estimate Yr To estimate Yf
Energy to
utility grid
... 3
Wh meter
Utility grid
... PV inverter
... Temperature
sensor
PV array
Figure 2.10: Performance ratio in a grid-connected PV system.
2.3.1.3 Performance Ratio (PR)
Performance ratio (PR) is proposed in [28–30] as a normalized parameter of the
PV system energy yield to evaluate the system performance. Independent of the
orientation and inclination of the panel, PR considers the overall effects of system
losses so that it can be used for fault detection. It is usually defined as (2.1) using
the final yield (Yf ) over the reference yield (Yr ).
Yf
PR = (dimensionless) (2.1)
Yr
more subsystems, with each having their own inverter and amount of snow, daily PR
a.c. metering. The influence of snow is
monthly PR values, but to
EXAMPLE RESULTS FOR PR
As an example of us
The PR is a dimensionless quantity that indicates the changes in performance,
overall effect of losses on the rated output. By itself, it systems—the linear least-s
does notReview
Chapter 2. Literature represent the amount of energy produced, over a period
25 of several
because a system with a low PR in a high solar resource using the PVUSA method
location might produce more energy than a system with a show similar degradation
Fig. 2.10 illustrates
high PRhow to obtain
in a low Yf andlocation.
solar resource Yr in aHowever,
grid-connected
for any PVsomewhat
systems. different input d
given system, location, and time; if a change in component PR uses all values of ir
Specifically, Yor
f design
representsincreases
the the PR,
normalized theACY f increases
energy accordingly.
output to the restricts
utility irradiance values
grid. It
PR values are useful for determining if the system is examine only the effec
operating as expected and for identifying the occurrence changes, both methods
is defined in (2.2), where E is the net AC power output and P is the nominal PV
of problems due to inverter operation (faults/failures, 0peak- power value indicated the
power tracking, software/control), circuit-breaker trips, instead the intent had be
power. solder-bond failures inside PV module junction boxes, performance, data would
diode failures, inoperative trackers, shading, snow, soiling, values would have been le
long-term PV system degradation, or other failures. Large 6 are an example of usin
decreases in PR indicate events that significantly impact changes over time, and
performance, such as inverters not operating or circuit- analysis of a PV technolo
breaker trips. Small E or moderate decreases in PR indicate Denver or any other locati
Yf = (kWh/kW) or (hours) (2.2)
that a less severe problem
P0 exists. The PR can identify the the three systems was inf
existence of a problem, but not the cause. The cause of different conversion efficien
the problem requires further investigation, which may
include a site visit by maintenance personnel. Decreases 1.0
On the other inside,
PR Y r represents
from soiling orthe normalized
long-term solar irradiation
PV system degradationconditions. 0.9
It a-Si/a-Si/a-Si:Ge
may not be readily evident unless viewed over months, or 0.8

years where
is defined in (2.3), in the case
H is ofthe
thetotal
latter. Decreases
in-plane solarfrom soiling are
irradiation (kW h/m2 ) and
site- and weather-dependent, with greater soiling (up to 0.7
PR
25% for some California locations) for high-traffic, high- 0.6
GST C is 1 kW/m2 .
pollution areas with infrequent rain. 0.5
0.4 PR, degradatio
For 2001, Fig. 5 presents daily, weekly, and monthly PVUSA, degra
PR values for the NREL SERF PV system described in a 1.0
CdS/CdTe PV
previous section. For most of the year, the PR values are 0.9
H
consistent with those
Yr =modeled for the same system and
(hours) 0.8(2.3)
shown in Fig. 1. But forGSTwinter
C and spring months, PR 0.7
values are lower for days coinciding with PR 0.6
1.0 0.5
0.4 PR, degradatio
PVUSA, degra
0.8 1.0
Single-crystal Si
0.9
0.8
0.6
0.7
PR
PR
0.6
0.4
0.5
0.4 PR, degradatio
Monthly PVUSA, degra
0.2
Weekly
Daily 1994 1998
0.0
Fig. 6. Long-term degradatio
J F M A M J J A S O N D
NREL from monthly values
regression lines from monthl
Fig. 5.Daily,
Figure 2.11: Daily, weekly,
weekly, and
andmonthly
monthlyPRPR
values for the
values for NREL
a PV SERF Lower
system for 2001regression lines from m
PV system for 2001. symbols.
[31].
5
PR values for PV systems are commonly reported on a monthly or yearly (long-
term) basis. For short-term basis, such as daily or weekly, PR gives better res-
olution and it can be used for fault detection in PV systems. For instance, as
shown in Fig. 2.11, most of the PR values lie between 0.65 and 0.8 when the PV
system is normally operating. However, the significantly reduced PR represents
faults/anomalies in the PV system, such as partial shadings, inappropriate system
sizing, MPPT errors, inverter failures, and faults within PV arrays. In addition,
Fig. 2.11 shows that PR values for smaller intervals (such as daily) give better
fault-detection resolution and quicker response than monthly or weekly data [30].
2.3.1.4 Capture Loss Analysis
To overcome the limitation of previously discussed PR (performance ratio), the
system capture loss (Lc ) has been proposed in [28, 32] to further understand the
abnormality on the system level. Lc represents the losses due to PV array opera-
tion. It is defined in (2.4), where Yr is the reference yield and YA is the daily array
energy output per kW of the installed PV array. In addition, Lc can be divided
into two types of losses, namely the thermal capture loss (Lct ) and miscellaneous
capture loss (Lcm ) in (2.5).
Lc = Yr − YA (2.4)
Lc = Lct − Lcm (2.5)
The measured capture loss (Lc mes ) should remain in theoretical boundary if the
PV array is normal. Therefore, (2.6) can be used for fault detection, where δ is
the standard deviation of the simulated capture losses Lc sim .
Lc sim − 2δ < Lc mes < Lc sim + 2δ (2.6)
As an extended research to [32], fault classification algorithm based on power
loss analysis was proposed [33], which is based on the deviation of the measured
parameters from the simulated ones.
2.3.2 Process-History Based Solutions
2.3.2.1 Statistical Methods
Statistical methods are proposed to detect abnormality in PV systems based on en-
ergy generation [34]. Specifically, descriptive and inferential statistics are applied
on the measured energy generation of each subarray of a PV plant. The exper-
imental results show that the proposed method can successfully detect a wiring
mistake at a single PV panel out of 22 normal panels.

A large amount of
labeled data
Training the model
Testing the model
Figure 2.12: Supervised learning.
Multivariate outlier rules using minimum covariance determinant (MCD) has been
proposed for PV fault detection [35]. Specifically, based on a number of voltage
and current measurements of PV modules at each specific time, the MCD is used
to calculated the robust distance (RD). The fault detection rule becomes straight-
forward: if the calculated RD is larger than a threshold, the fault occurs in the
PV module.
2.3.2.2 Machine Learning
Machine learning is a subarea of artificial intelligence, which automatically ex-
tracts knowledge from the given PV data set. One category of the machine learn-
ing uses supervised learning approaches. As shown in Fig. 2.12, depending on a
large amount of labeled data, supervised learning algorithms can learn the system
and make the prediction after it is trained. A variety of supervised learning mod-
els have been proposed in PV installations. Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is

developed for PV performance evaluation under partial shadings [36], PV health
status monitoring [37] and short-circuit fault detection in PV arrays [38]. Bayesian
Neural Network (BNN) and regression polynomial models have been proposed to
predict the soiling effects on large-scale PV arrays [39]. PV fault detection and
classification use decision-tree model in [40], K-nearest neighbor and support vec-
tor machine (SVM) in [41].
2.3.3 Signal-Processing Based Solutions
2.3.3.1 Dc Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI)
Dc arc-fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) is required by NEC 2014 Edition [7] to
fill the protection shortcomings of conventional GFDI and OCPD. If the fault is
not properly cleared by GFDI and OCPD, dc arc may occur in PV arrays [42].
An electric arc is defined as “an electrical breakdown of a gas which produces
an ongoing plasma discharge, resulting from a current flowing through normally
nonconductive media such as air” [43]. In Fig. 2.13(a), a dc arc is created using
dc arc generator and a PV simulator in the Power Electronics lab at Northeastern
University. The schematic of the dc arc experimental setup is given in Fig. 2.13(b).
In this low-power case, the arc voltage Varc = 30V dc and arc current Iarc = 3A. At
this moment of the arc fault, the PV simulator is still working around the maximum
power point (MPP) so that the dc arc is continuous without interruption. In real
PV fields, as the current and voltage rating increases, dc arcs may have a much
higher power level that can easily ignite fire hazards.
(a) Dc arc is created by a dc arc generator and a dc power supply.
Oscilloscope
Varc
V
Dc-arc generator Iarc
PV simulator
(DC power DC load
supply)
Emergency stop
button
(b) The schematic diagram of a dc arc experimental setup.
Figure 2.13: The dc arc experimental setup at Northeastern University.
As shown in Fig. 2.14, the dc arc will generate a significant amount of ac noise that
can be used as a fault detection signature. AFCI should detect and interrupt series
and parallel arcing faults in dc PV sources and output circuits. In addition, several
dc-arc detection methods have been developed using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT)
[44], Artificial Neural Network (ANN) [44] and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT)
[45].
-3
x 10 Single-Sided Amplitude Spectrum of string current
4
normal current
3.5
Series dc-arc current
2.5
|Y(f)|
1.5
0.5
0
2 3 4 5 6 7
10 10 10 10 10 10
Frequency (Hz)
Figure 2.14: Normal vs. series dc-arc current in frequency domain.
2.3.3.2 Insulation Resistance Monitor
Insulation resistance monitor has been used as a ground-fault protection in un-
grounded PV systems, when the system is de-energized [46–48]. Insulation re-
sistance of the PV array ranges from kΩ to M Ω, and it decreases dramatically
when insulation faults or direct contact faults (e.g. hazardous ground fault) occur.
Therefore, a significantly reduced insulation resistance may indicate a ground fault.
Solar PV insulation model has been proposed in [47] that includes PV modules, se-
ries and parallel insulation resistance, leakage capacitance of PV modules, and PV
working conditions (e.g., short-circuit or open-circuit). In addition, the experimen-
tal results show that insulation resistance of a PV array decreases as PV module
temperature rises or relative humidity (RH) increases. Fig. 2.15 shows a commer-
cial product of insulation resistance monitor. It monitors both the positive-ground

A-ISOMETER® iso-PV with coupling device AGH-PV
Application
ChapterExamples
2. Literature Review 32
Ungrounded solar array utilizing iso-PV ground fault detector and AGH-PV voltage coupler
Array Grid
Solar array Non-isolated inverter

Ungrounded DC Array, 0... 1100 VDC
Wiring Figure
- Connection2.15:
betweenInsulation
iso-PV and AGH-PV voltagemonitoring
resistance coupler for ground-fault detection in
ungrounded PV systems [31]
and negative-ground insulation resistance in real time for ground-fault detection
[49]. This approach can be used for both energized and de-energized PV systems.
2.3.3.3 Residual Current Detector (RCD)
Residual current detector (RCD) acts like a differential relay in power system,
by monitoring the current difference between input and output terminals of the
protected zone (see Fig. 2.16). If the current difference is higher than a threshold,
the fault alarm will be sent out. However, parasitic capacitance of the PV array
may cause considerable leakage current when transformerless PV inverters are
used. This may lead to nuisance tripping on RCD [50].
The differential protection is known as the best protection technique now and for
more than 50 years for transformers, motors, generators, and reactors in power
4 NAE1012370 / 01.2011
systems [51]. The idea of differential relays is to monitor the electrical quantities
I1a Protected I1b

zone
i1a i1b
iop=i1a-i1b
Figure 2.16: Concept of differential relays for internal fault detection [51]
(usually current) entering and leaving the protected zone. As shown in Fig. 2.16,
the primary current coming in and leaving from the protected zone are I1a and I1b ,
respectively. The corresponding secondary current are i1a and i1b . Their difference
is the relay’s operating current iop = i1a − i1b . If the magnitude |iop | is higher than
zero or a small threshold, a fault alert will be sent out.
Similar to the differential relay in power systems, residual current detector (RCD,
or residual current monitoring unit, RCMU) has been proposed for fault detection
in PV arrays (see Fig. 2.17). RCD monitors the sum of currents coming in and
going out from the protected zone, which can be an entire PV array as RCD#1
or an individual PV string as RCD#2. Once |iop | is larger than their separate
threshold, a fault will be detected. For example, a ground fault occurs in String 1
at point G1, who has a ground fault current Ig . Therefore, i1a 6= i1b and ipos 6= ineg .
And the fault will be detected by both RCD#1 and RCD#2 properly.
However, the protection “blind spot” of RCD exists when no external fault point
involves with the protected zone. For example, short-circuit faults, open-circuit
RCD#1 iop=ipos- ineg

GFDI
+ Ipos
String 1 String 2 String 9 String 10
Utility
grid
Iback
I1a I2a I9a I10a Gsys
Ineg Ig>0
Ground
fault
G1
vpv
RCD#2 PV module
Ig
iop=i1a-i1b
Series fuse for

overcurrent protection
RCD Residual-Current Detector
I1b I2b I9b I10b

_
Figure 2.17: RCD application in solar PV arrays.
faults, or degradations inside the protected zones. In these cases, ipos should be
identical to ineg , and iop should be around zero.
2.3.3.4 Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR)
Time domain reflectometry (TDR) is a measurement approach to determine the
electrical wire or cable characteristics by injecting certain waveforms (usually step
or impulse signals) and observing reflected waveforms. TDR compares the reflec-
tions from the unknown line environment to those generated by standard or given
interface the plant to power grid.
TDR set-up is shown in Fig. 2. A pulsed voltage -75 I I I
generator is applied at the inverter side of the field-

\
connecting wires and drives string's anode by negative .!*
pulses with 70 V amplitude, 40 ns rise time, 5 ps
-80
duration and 1000 Hz repetition rate. The generator
(output impedance Zo = 50 Q) is interfaced to the two
A
L
conductor line (characteristic impedance Ze = 300 Q) 0
m -85
Chapter 2. LiteraturebyReview
an impedance-matching resistor (RM = 270 Q) and -
c
35
by a blocking capacitor (100 nF). 8
-90
Oscilloscooe m
-95
0 1 2 3
Time (ps)
Generator Fig. 3. Waveforms recorded w

performed on a string containing a mod
with inverted polarity.
Figures 4 and 5 show the modifica

in voltage waveforms obtained for a s
(ideal) fault is moved along the string:
fault positions, both the delay of the
28 and its amplitude are changed. Delay
RL Modules evident when the fault occurs in the fir
while amplitude effect is more evident
deep inside the string.
v
N
Strings -70
Fig. 2. Experimental
Figure 2.18: Schematic diagramset-up.
for TDR setup in the PV field. [52]
-75
In the same point a storage oscilloscope records distinguish the input
the0.12
voltage signal by means of a high-impedance
signal waveforms, a
h
probe. A standard instrumentation link (GPIB) z

0.1 the oscilloscope
interfaces input to a computer, allowing us & -80 counterbalanced. Th
to 0.08
perform numerical
open analysis of the measured -d distinguish the input a
waveforms.
short s equipments prevented
0.06
[V]
-85
RL68
0.04 RESULTS
0.12
0.02
Fig. 1 shows typical waveforms for a string
-90
1 2 3
located 0.10
0 about 150 meters far from the point of Time (ps)
observation. The lowest curve reveals a break in the
0 200 400 600 0.08
-0.02
circuit after ldhmodule. Before repairing the fault, the Fig. 4. Waveforms recorded w
same point was deliberatelytime [ns] performed on a string in0.06
[V]
short-circuited to ground, the presence of
obtaining the waveform shown for comparison in the at different positions. 0.04
figure. Also it is reported the waveform obtained after
FigureFig. 4. Step
2.19: Stepinput
input
reparation, whenandthethe
and thereflected
string reflectedwaveforms
operating. with
waveforms
was normally with cable
cable. [53] 0.02
0.00
0.12 847
impedance. Therefore, TDR can be used to troubleshoot Input the faulty wires or ca- -0.02 0 5
0.1
open
0.08
bles. In addition to fault0.06detection and classification,short TDR is able to locate the
RL68 Fig. 6. Step input an
0.04
[V]
fault, which is especially 0.02

useful in a large electrical system.
0 licensed use limited to: Northeastern University. Downloaded on July 23,2010 at 16:47:51 UTC from IEEE Xplo
Authorized
-0.02 0 200 400 600 0.10
-0.04
Fault location using TDR-0.06 has been proposed in PV fields [52–54]. The schematic 0.08
0.06
time [ns]
diagram is shown in Fig. 2.18. For example, Fig. 2.19 shows a step input into 0.04
[V]
0.02
Fig. 5. Impulse input and the reflected waveforms with 0.00
a PV string and its reflected waveforms. cableThe waveforms differs with the type of -0.02 0
-0.04
conditions, such as open-circuit fault, short-circuit fault, and resistance load. -0.06
TDR MEASUREMENTS WITH PV STRINGS
The fundamental TDR experiments under dark Fig. 7. Impulse input a

conditions were conducted with PV cells strings and PV
module strings.
The experiments
TDR results with PV cells string also conducted, and
The connections betw
Figures 4 and 5 show the modifications occurring
in voltage waveforms obtained for a string when an
(ideal) fault is moved along the string: in the various
fault positions, both the delay of the reflected pulse
28 and its amplitude are changed. Delay effect is more
Modules evident when the fault occurs in the first 15 modules,
while amplitude effect is more evident when it occurs
Chapter
deep inside2.the Literature
string. Review 36
v be based on
analysis of sing
N a string can be
Strings -70 waveforms obt
experimental co
p. Improved
-75 method allows t
ge oscilloscope records -70
on several para
of a high-impedance h
occurs, TDR is
entation link (GPIB) z L fault position w
a computer, allowing us & -80 & -75 the time require
sis of the measured -d -Q
CI to keep as hig
s -85
>
0
-80
strings. On the
TS
aveforms for a string

-90
1 2 3 4
-85 :
1
I
2
I
3
+
4 -60
ar from the point of Time (ps)
reveals a break in the Time (ps)
e repairing the fault, the
hort-circuited to ground,
(a)
Fig. TDR on open-circuit
4. Waveforms recordedPV strings.
when TDR is (b)
Fig. TDR on short-circuit
5. Waveforms recordedPV strings.
when TDR is -70
performed on a string in the presence of an open circuit performed on a string in the presence of a short circuit
n for comparison in the at different positions. to ground at different positions. h
waveform obtained after
Figure 2.20: TDR on open-circuit and short-circuit PV strings (Use a negative L*. -80
normally operating.
step input).The attenuation taking place when the pulse is -P
*
0
propagating in the string is influenced by environmental >
847 conditions, like temperature or irradiation level [l]. Fig.
-90
6 shows the modifications occurring in the waveforms

Fig. 2.20 shows the TDR results on open-circuit andanshort-circuit
for a string under faults
irradiation level ranging from in
200 PV
to
800 W/m2. The short circuited, normally operating and
0
opened strings were nearly located at the same
strings. Note that a negative input step distance
is used this
from case. The
the observation point.different TDR
Minor differences
in the waveforms arise from connection details.
Fig. 7a.
response may be helpful to further identify the fault location.
Northeastern University. Downloaded on July 23,2010 at 16:47:51 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. performed on t
an open circuit
-75 I I I I I
However, TDR has several drawbacks. 'j

First, the PV
I
system under test must be
-80 - - -60
off-line, which will affect the energy yield. Second,

L it requires human input (labor
- -70
cost) to observe and learn the reflected waveforms, which hinders its effectiveness 5
-90 -
of automatic fault detection.
-95 I I I I -90
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (p)
-1 00 I
Fig. 6. Irradiation level effect on the waveforms I
observed for strings under different operating 0

2.3.3.5 Spread Spectrum Time Domain Reflectometry
conditions (SSTDR)
(short circuit to ground, normal, open
circuit): upper/lower set of curves were recorded under
200/800 W/m2. Fig. 7b.
performed on th
Former discussion reports some factors affecting short circuit to g
As an improved version of TDR, spread spectrum time
waveforms domain
shape reflectometry
and illustrate (SSTDR)
why fault finding could
has been commercially proposed to detect aircraft wiring faults [55]. SSTDR has 848
low test signal levels and high noise immunity, which make it a viable solution
to detect live wires fault (in energized systems). For PV ground-fault detection,
Authorized licensed use limited to: Northeastern University. Downloaded on July 23,2010 at 16:47:5
the autocorrelation peaks generated by SSTDR under ground-fault condition is

the open-circuit voltage
Mechanical Utility Roofing
as the size ofDiscover
ke timely the PVoverheated
array bearings, linkages, Scan large areas and hundreds of Find compromised roofing areas at your
utdowns, and other components before they can connections quickly and efficiently to facility, and repair it before problems
SB through the inspection
interrupt your operations or create safety prevent unexpected service outages and quickly become a safety hazard or require
ecomes more hazards.
and more lost revenues. replacing the entire structure.
ed VOC may be similar to
SB develops in a group Chapter 2. Literature Review 37

s six bypass diodes, the
e with a capacitive load
e expected value, which
ast, if we measure the I–V
posed of nine modules
ccasional
groups of cells) with a E40 thru E60 for more frequent T420 thru
nd
C
reports
would be around 53/54 inspections and reports inspection
AC pros, and Plant maintenance, electricians, & facility Substation &
is only a difference of contractors and RCM prog
ower
ns andthan
safetythe uncertainty
checks • Higher temperature ranges & extra sensitivity • Ergonomic a
orth
an IRmentioning
temp guns that RSB • Interchangeable telephoto & wide angle lenses • Long-range i
le enough for
asuring theeveryone
open-circuit • FLIR Wi-Fi app & touchscreen efficiency • Feature-rich
use its input impedance is

agnitude higher than the
e measurement would be
866.477.3687 (a) Figure
Infrared
12.thermal
Infraredimage of aimage
thermal hot-spot
of a on
RSBthehot-spot
strative purposes only, and may not have been taken by the camera series depicted.
back of a (b) Photo of a thermal
he measurements of the PV module [57]. imaging camera [59].
e I–V curve are recom-
ntenance of PV plants,17 Figure 2.21: Fault detection in PV arrays using Infrared (IR) thermography.
cators for detecting the Figure 13 shows, although the picture does not do
h advise the use of alter- it justice, an extreme case of an incandescent RSB
xample, portable infrared significantly
hot-spot. Finally,higher Figure
than the 14 normal one. illustrative
shows some According to this, a fault detection al-
able on the market at a examples of the damage caused by RSB hot-spots.
und s5000) and provide gorithm
From has left been
to right,proposed in [56].
perforation However,
of the tedlar, SSTDR
glass has not been proposed for
for detecting hot-spots breakage and evidence of fire in a junction box.
l as identifying bypass fault location or classification.
ent even if the cells that
inated.
2.3.3.6 Infrared (IR) Thermography
es, RSB may also cause Infrared (IR) thermography has been used to identify certain mismatch faults, such
odules. In the worst case,
r generated by a group of
as hot spots on PV modules, which may cause irreversible damage and power loss
eral tens of watts, and
cause elevated hot-spot
, Figure 12 shows an on PV modules [57, 58]. Since IR inspection is periodic and repetitive, it may
RSB whose temperature
be costly if it requires PV maintenance personnel increased labor costs over the
is higher than the critical
6
encapsulants. Figure 13. Incandescent RSB hot-spot
lifespan PV modules.
ons, Ltd. Prog. Photovolt: Res. Appl. 2008; 16:693–701
DOI: 10.1002/pip
Rs Ipv
Ish
+
ID
IL Vpv
Rsh
Diode
Figure 2.22: The equivalent circuit of the one-diode model for a PV module
2.3.3.7 Internal Series Resistance
The schematic diagram of the widely used one-diode model is given in Fig. 2.22.
The current equation of the equivalent circuit can be written in (2.7) [14].
h Vpv + Ipv Rs i Vpv + Ipv Rs

Ipv = IL − IS exp ·q−1 − (2.7)
A · k · T · NS Rsh
where Ipv is the output current of PV module, IL is the light-generate current, IS
is the saturation current of the diode, Vpv is the module voltage, Rs is the equiv-
alent internal series resistance of module, Rsh is the equivalent shunt resistance
of module, A is the diode ideal factor, q is the electron charge (1.6 × 10−19 C), k
is the Boltzmann constant (1.38 × 10−23 J/K ), T is the PV module temperature
(K), and NS is the number of series solar cells in the module.
The internal series resistance (Rs ) of PV modules can be used for degradation
detection inside PV modules. The actual Rs can be estimated by using either I-V
curve analysis [60] or the measurement around open-circuit voltage [61]. Compared
with the normal Rs , degraded PV modules usually exhibit increased Rs , which
provide a useful feature for fault detection.
2.4 Existing Fault Protection Solutions
Once the fault is detected, a fault signal can activate fault protection devices
to interrupt the fault, in order to prevent PV components from damage. “The
fundamental objective of system protection is to provide isolation of a problem
area in the power system quickly, so that the shock to the rest of the system is
minimized and as much as possible is left intact” [51]. Fault protection can be
also called as fault clearance, or fault interruption.
In PV applications, the fault area in the solar PV arrays should be isolated so that
the impact to the rest of the PV system is minimized. The existing fault protection
methods for PV arrays are summarized in Table. 2.3. Passive methods use ground-
fault detection interrupters (GFDI), overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) or
blocking diodes [1, 7]. On the other hand, active methods use more complex
sensing circuitry to detect the fault, and rely on circuit breakers, contactors, or
semiconductors switches to de-energize and isolate the affected PV components
[62–64].
Table 2.3: Summary of existing PV fault protection
Protection Limitation/
Method Cost Complexity
Type Challenge
GFDI (Required
Low Low Blind spots
by NEC )
Passive
OCPD (Required
Low Low Blind spots
by NEC )
Blocking diode
Low
(Not required by Low Low
reliability
NEC )
High-
frequency
Dc arc-fault circuit interference
Medium Medium
interrupter (AFCI) from power
Active condition
units
Bulky and
Contactor + Medium – costly for
Medium
protection relay High high-voltage
application
Semiconductor
Low – PV-module
switch + Medium
Medium level only
protection relay
Passive protection devices have obvious limitations. The “blind spots” of GFDI
and OCPD have been discussed previously. Furthermore, blocking diodes are not
a substitute of OCPD and they can prevent OCPD from normal operation [1].
To improve fault protection, active fault protection devices have been developed
and shown the advantages over passive ones. But they greatly dependent on the
fault detection methods (i.e., decision-making algorithms). Therefore, there is still
a great need of fault detection methods that can provide responsive and reliable
tripping signal to active protection devices.

2.5 Conclusion
In this chapter, we present the literature review of existing fault detection, clas-
sification, location and protection solutions for solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays
(dc side). Also, the benefits and drawbacks of existing approaches are explored
and compared. Generally, fault detection, classification and location methods
can be divided into three categories, which are quantitative model-based methods,
process-history based methods, and signal-processing based methods. Required by
the National Electrical Code (NEC), ground-fault detection interrupters (GFDI)
and overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) are widely used for fault protection in
PV installations. However, their weakness and limitations have been discovered,
which may lead to the previously reported fire hazards.
To address this issue, various methods have been proposed using different tech-
niques. However, they have limitation that may hinder their effectiveness in real-
world PV application. Therefore, there is an urgent need of better fault detection
methods to prevent PV systems from fault hazards.

Chapter 3
Fault Studies in a
Commercial-Scale PV Laboratory
3.1 Introduction
Fault analysis is a fundamental task to prevent the aforementioned faults and
associated fire hazards from PV installations. Since PV arrays are unique power
sources that have non-linear output characteristics and current-limiting features,
special attention is needed to study and understand the fault behavior of PV
systems, including PV arrays, PV inverters, and protection devices (e.g., OCPD
and GFDI).
Fault analysis in PV systems have been studied in the literature [1, 3, 8, 23, 26, 65–
69]. However, these fault analyses have obvious limitations: 1) Some of the studies
42
Chapter 3. Fault Studies in a Commercial-Scale PV Laboratory 43
are only focusing on mismatch faults, which do not include the dangers associated
with large fault current or possible fire hazards [23, 69]; 2) Some PV fire hazards
are reported on a case-by-case basis. They often lack the verification of real PV
data or any detailed transient fault behavior [3, 26]; and 3) Experimental results
under real-working conditions are limited by the size of the PV systems (installed
power capacity <200 W) [68]. No ground faults or line-line faults have ever been
implemented on PV systems at commercial-scale level, which are typically above
20 kW installed power with 3-phase ac output connection. Therefore, the fault
current in reported experiments is usually only a few amps, which is much less
than real-world fault current (ranging from a few amps to hundreds of amps) [1].
In order to solve these limitations of the prior art, this chapter focuses on the fault
studies of solar PV arrays and discovers the shortcomings of OCPD in a typical
35kW solar PV systems in both simulations and experiments. Specifically, this
chapter of the dissertation includes the following two research contributions:
Contribution 1 : The line-line faults are simulated and analyzed in a typical commercial-
scale PV system of 35 kW.
• The success and failure of fault clearance by OCPD (i.e., fuses)
are studied. The I-V curve analysis shows that “blind spots” in
OCPD exist if the current magnitude is too low. It is shown that
fault current magnitude varies greatly with the changing fault
locations.
Contribution 2 : Fault experiments are implemented in a typical commercial-scale
PV system of 35 kW that is able to create and record faults.
• Together with international partner Mersen Corp., we have de-
signed and built an experimental PV testing facility, located in
Saint-Bonnet-de-Mure, France. This is the first time line-line
fault measurement in a commercial-scale PV system have been
presented. PV strings are specially designed to create line-line
faults. Oscilloscope and PV monitoring system are used to cap-
ture the transient and post-fault scenarios in the PV arrays, which
provide well sampled data for fault analysis. The fault analysis
covers both the transient response and post-fault behavior of the
PV system (dc side), including PV array, overcurrent protection
devices (OCPD, i.e., fuses) and grid-connected PV inverter.
3.2 Simulation of Line-Line Faults in PV sys-
tems
3.2.1 Typical Grid-Connected PV Systems
A typical grid-connected PV system includes a PV array of M × N modules (M
number of series modules in every string and N number of parallel PV strings),
a central PV inverter with MPPT, overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) and a

GFDI
Pos. + ipv
grid
Gsys
i1 i2 i11 i12
Ig
vpv PV module
Series fuse for

Line-line
fault
Double
ground
fault
Neg. _
Figure 3.1: Line-line faults in a PV array with a centralized PV inverter.
ground fault detection interrupter (GFDI). As shown in Fig. 3.1, line-line faults
could happen inside PV arrays and potentially may involve large fault current or
dc arcs. This research focuses on line-line faults, which are defined as an accidental
short-circuiting between two points in the array with different potentials. Illus-
trated in Fig. 3.1, a line-line fault may be caused by a short-circuit fault between
two different points or a double-ground fault in PV arrays.

dc-dc
dc-ac
boost dc
3-phase Utility
PV array converter bus grid
inverter
with MPPT
2-stage 3-phase PV
inverter
Figure 3.2: Schematic diagram of the simulated PV system.
3.2.2 Simulation Parameters
As the schematic diagram shown in Fig. 3.2, a grid-connected PV system with
a centralized inverter is developed in MATLAB/Simulink. Using the widely used
one-diode PV model, a solar PV array with 12×12 PV modules (rated at 34.56 kW )
is simulated, which consists of 12 modules in series per string and 12 strings in
parallel (M = 12 and N = 12). In the simulation, a 2-stage PV inverter has a
front-end dc-dc converter cascaded with a 3-phase inverter. The dc-dc converter
uses a boost topology to step up the PV voltage to the dc bus voltage. Meanwhile,
the dc-dc converter is integrated with the MPPT algorithm, which extracts the
maximum possible power from the PV array. The dc-ac 3-phase inverter is playing
the role of converting the dc power in a proper form into the ac utility grid. At
the same time, the inverter maintains the dc bus voltage at a predefined value.
The main parameters of the PV modules under Standard Test Conditions [(STC ),
1000 W/m2 , 25 o C, 1.5 air mass] are as follows: the maximum power PM P =
242 W , the open-circuit voltage VOC = 37.2 V , the maximum power voltage
VM P = 30 V , the short-circuit current ISC = 8.6 A, the maximum power current
IM P = 8.1 A, the number of series solar cells per module NS = 60, and three
bypass diodes per module. The MPPT [e.g., perturb and observe (P&O)] voltage
of the PV inverter ranges from VM P P T min = 230 V to VM P P T max = 500 V . At
each voltage perturbation, the MPPT voltage step is v̂M P P T = 2V .
The simulated PV system is capable of studying faults among them. In this
dissertation, a line-line fault with x number module difference is annotated as
“LL-x ”, where x can be any integer between 1 and M , where M is the number of
PV modules per string. Assume that the whole PV array is operating under STC.
Note that we only consider solid faults, which means zero fault impedance.
In the following simulations, two representative cases, such as LL-2 and LL-5
are studied. Namely, a line-line fault with 2 modules and a line-line fault with 5
modules. In the following part of this chapter, fault scenarios in solar PV array
are analyzed and explained through fault evolution in time domain and I-V curve
analysis.
3.2.3 Fault Analysis using I-V Curves and MPPT Effects
First, let us assume that the string current ij (j = 1 . . . 12) consists of a dc com-
ponent (Ij ) and a ac component (îj ), which are defined as
ij = Ij + îj for j = 1 . . . 12 (3.1)

14
12 MPP1
Normal array MPP3 MPP2
10
LL-2 faulted array
Current normalized by Isc
8 LL-5 faulted array

Normal string
6
LL-2 faulted string
4 LL-5 faulted string
0
VMPP2
0.25Isc VMPP3
-2
‐4.4Isc
-4
VMPP1
-6
-8
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
PV array voltage (V)
Figure 3.3: Simulated I-V curves of the PV array under line-line faults (LL-2
and LL-5 ).
Specifically, Ij is the steady-state dc current, which is determined by the specific
I-V curve and the array’s operating voltage vpv . On the other hand, îj is mainly
caused by the array voltage perturbation v̂M P P T when the MPPT is working.
The I-V curves of the PV array and String #1 are plotted in Fig. 3.3 for fault
analysis. Here we only consider the steady state of PV string current Ij , which is
mainly determined by weather conditions, its I-V curve of the specific string, and
the operating voltage vpv . For this reason, the I-V curve analysis is fundamental
to understand the fault scenarios among PV strings. When a LL-x fault occurs,
the I-V curve of the faulted PV string will change accordingly. Since the faulted
string has x number of modules less, it will have an open-circuit voltage reduced
by x · Voc . But the short-circuit current remains the same as other normals strings
at ISC .
The I-V curves of the PV array and strings under the previously discussed LL-2
is plotted in Fig. 3.3. Before LL-2 occurs, the PV array is operating around the
normal maximum power point (MPP), M P P 1. At the moment of LL-2, the I-V
curve of the array is changed suddenly with a reduced open-circuit voltage and
a new MPP M P P 2. Since vpv follows the P&O MPPT’s command (VCM D ) and
oscillates around VM P P 1 , it is found that I1 can lie between 0.2ISC and 0.3ISC at
the moment of the fault. After that, once VCM D is updated by MPPT, vP V will
decreases gradually until it reaches VM P P 2 . As a result, I1 increases to 0.51ISC .
For normal String #2 to #12, as vpv decreases, their current Ij (j = 2 to 12) is
slightly increased toward ISC . It is worth mentioning that this fault has no reverse
current and will not be cleared by OCPD.
Similarly, I1 under LL-5 can be predicted by Fig. 3.3. It is found that I1 has a
large reverse current −4.4ISC at VM P P 1 at the moment of the fault. This reverse
current is coming from other normal strings into String #1. At this point, String
#1 is dissipating 4.4 × 8.6 A × 361 V =∼ 13.7 kW power as a load. Since the
reverse current (−4.4ISC ) is much larger than the PV fuse’s Inf (at least 1.76ISC ),
the fault has a better chance to be cleared by the fuse before vpv reaches a new
global MPP at VM P P 3 .
3.2.4 PV Dynamic Characteristics
The dynamic conductance gpv (unit: S = Ω−1 ) of PV strings is defined as
î
gpv = (3.2)
v̂pv at certain

vpv
representing the string current change î under a small voltage perturbation v̂pv . In
other words, a PV string with a larger gpv will have a larger current change under
the same voltage perturbation. The vpv vs. gpv curves under normal conditions
and various line-line faults are plotted in Fig. 3.4 for further discussion. Note the
x-axis is the array voltage vpv that ranges from 0 to VOC .
For example at the knee of the I-V curves (around VM P P 1 ), according to (3.2),
different conditions have the corresponding current perturbation under the same
voltage perturbation v̂M P P T . By comparing gpv of various conditions (see Fig. 3.4),
it is found that line-line faults involved with more modules tend to have a more
negative gpv at VM P P 1 and therefore a higher magnitude of î. This research finding
predicts that as more PV modules are involved at line-line faults, the faulted string
will have larger magnitude of current variation |î| under the MPPT perturbation
at the post-fault steady state.
The second observation in Fig. 3.4 is that gpv is a function of the dc operating
point vpv . In other words, gpv increases as vpv is decreased. For example, under
the same voltage perturbation v̂M P P T , |î| decreases as the dc operating point vpv is
0.2
Dynamic conductance gpv(S)

VMPP1
0
Normal
Normal string
LL‐1
-0.2 LL-1
LL-2 LL‐2
LL-3 LL‐3
LL-4
LL-5 LL‐4
-0.4 LL‐5
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
PV array voltage vpv(V)
Figure 3.4: Simulated vpv vs. gpv curves of PV strings under normal, and
line-line faults, such as LL-1 to LL-5.
reduced. It is necessary to mention that î caused by v̂M P P T can only be observed
under P&O or other similar MPPT techniques.
3.2.5 Fault Evolution in Time Domain
In this subsection, the same fault scenarios are simulated and studied in the time
domain, which can be predicted and explained by the previously studied I-V curve
analysis and MPPT effects. Assume LL-2 fault occurs on String #1 at time t1 ,
which will cause mismatch between String #1 and other normal strings (String #i
for i = 2 . . . 12). Since the faulted PV array has larger open-circuit voltage than
VM P P T min , the inverter’s operation is sustained and the MPPT is still working.
pple
PV array voltage Vpv(V)

380
370 Around VMPP1
360
Around VMPP2
350
340
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Normalized current by SC
ipp = 0.0047ISC
I
1
0.8 ipp = 0.009ISC i2 to i12 (Normal)
0.6
0.4
i1 (LL2)
0.2
t1 t2 t3 ipp = 0.059ISC
0
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
time (s)
Figure 3.5: Simulated PV string current ij (j = 1 to 12) evolution during

LL-2.
The current evolution of LL-2 on String #1 is simulated in Fig. 3.5. The current
axis (vertical) is normalized by ISC for clarity of explanation, where ISC = 8.6 A
under STC. Current of String #1 (i1 ) and current of other normal strings (ij ,
for j = 2 to 12) are plotted in Fig. 3.5 for comparison. Before the fault (time
t < t1 ), the string current i1 to i12 have identical values and are overlapping in
Fig. 3.5. When LL-2 occurs at time t1 , PV array voltage vpv is found as 363.7 V
and i1 is greatly reduced to 0.2ISC , because String #1 has a changed I-V curve
(according to Fig. 3.3). After time t2 , the P&O MPPT begins to respond by
gradually decreasing vpv from the pre-fault MPPT command VCM D at VM P P 1
towards a new MPP at VM P P 2 . During this process, i1 is continually increasing

as vpv keeps decreasing. Finally at time t3 , i1 reaches a post-fault steady state
and begins to oscillate around 0.51ISC . Notice that during the fault evolution,
i1 is always positive and never has any overcurrent. This brings the protection
challenges to the OCPD, since OCPD never has a chance to clear the fault. Note
that as previously discussed, the non-fusing current (Inf ) of PV fuses is required
as 1.13 × In (at least 1.76ISC ). Therefore, to successfully clear the fault, the fault
current magnitude must be larger than Inf .
The current ripple caused by the MPPT in the time domain can be successfully
predicted by the PV dynamic conductance gpv . There are two aspects regarding
the current ripple: 1) The faulted string #1 tends to have a larger current ripple
under the same MPPT voltage perturbation. For instance in Fig. 3.5, during post-
fault steady state (after time t3 ), the peak-peak current ripple îpp of String #1 is
greatly increased to 0.059ISC , compared to the pre-fault îpp = 0.009ISC . 2) Since
vpv is reduced to VM P P 2 , normal strings are expected to have smaller current ripple.
For example in Fig. 3.5, after time t3 , îpp of normal strings is further reduced to
0.0047ISC , compared to the pre-fault value 0.009ISC .
3.2.6 More Simulation Results and Discussion
More simulation results under STC are summarized in Table. 3.1 for comparison,
which has shown that the line-line fault with more modules tend to have a more
reduced dc current component Ij . The conclusion is that the OCPD (e.g., fuses)
Table 3.1: Simulation results of various line-line faults at String #1 under

STC
I1 at Fault
Fault I1 during
Post-Fault Clearance by
Typea Transient
Steady State OCPD?
LL-1 0.77ISC 0.81ISC No
LL-2 0.25ISC 0.51ISC No
LL-3 −0.76ISC −0.076ISC No
LL-4 −2.28ISC −0.286ISC No
LL-5 −4.4ISC −0.438ISC Most likely
LL-6 −7.321ISC −0.4179ISC Yes
I1 = 0 A after
LL-7 −10.61ISC Yes
fuse is blown.
I1 = 0 A after
fuse is blown.
I1 = 0 A after
fuse is blown.
I1 = 0 A after
LL-10 −11ISC Yes
fuse is blown.
I1 = 0 A after
LL-11 −11ISC Yes
fuse is blown.
a
In all cases, the pre-fault current I1 = 0.94ISC under STC.
can successfully clear the line-line faults if enough PV modules (5 modules or more
in this specific case) are involved. However, the protection gap exists when OCPD
fails to work under line-line faults with less than 4 modules, since the faulted string
does not have overcurrent to melt fuses.
Moreover, PV string current under LL-1 and LL-2 remains positive, which may
show similar values to normal string current. It becomes difficult to differentiate
between faulted and normal string current. Therefore, there is an urgent need of
Figure 3.6: The photo of the PV laboratory located in France.
simple and responsive fault detection methods to detect such faults in PV systems.
3.3 Experimental Setup in the PV Laboratory
To verify the research findings by the previous simulation results, for the first time,
a 35kW commercial-scale PV laboratory (shown in Fig. 3.6) is designed to study a
series of line-line faults under real-working conditions, including transient behavior
of grid-connected PV inverters, MPPT response, and failure of OCPD protection.
The experimental results verify our previous simulation results, showing that the
line-line fault with involving 4 modules or less in a 12-module string may remain
in the PV array without OCPD interruption and become a safety issue.
A specialized 35 kW, 500 Vdc grid-connected PV system (also called the PV lab-
oratory) has been designed and built that is capable of creating different types of
PV faults, as shown in the photograph (see Fig. 3.6) [70]. Fig. 3.7 illustrates the
Pos. + iPV
PV
String 1 String 2 String 6 String 7 String 12
PV
+ Utility
monitoring monitoring
v_PV grid
board#1 board#2 vf
i1 i2 i6 i7 i12
PV module #1
Switches to
create faults PV module #2
LL-1
PV module #3 PV module
PV module #4
LL-2
Current sensor
...
OCPD (Series fuse for

PV module #9 overcurrent protection)
More LL PV module #10
faults
PV module #11
Line-line faults
created by a switch
PV module #12
Line-line fault with

LL-m m number of
modules mismatch
Neg. _
Figure 3.7: Schematic diagram of the PV laboratory.
schematic diagram of the PV lab. A photograph of major experimental equip-
ments is given in Fig. 3.8. Specifically, the current probe amplifier (TCPA300),
current probe (TCP303, measurement range dc–15 MHz, 150 Adc) and voltage
differential probe (5200A) by Tektronix are used with the oscilloscope for tran-
sient measurement. Additionally, the PV string monitoring system by Mersen (see
Fig. 3.9) is installed on every six PV strings to accurately record the string current
and the PV array voltage [71] at 0.5 Hz sampling frequency. The main parameters
of PV components are given in Table 3.2 in detail.
In Fig. 3.7, the first two strings are specially designed to create line-line faults.
Table 3.2: Main Parameters of Experimental PV Laboratory
Equipment Model Detailed parameters

At standard test conditions
(STC): VOC =37.2 V, ISC =8.6 A,
PV module TE240-60M+
VM P P =29.55 V, IM P P =8.2 A,
PM P P =240 W
144 modules, 12
At MPP under STC: PP V =34.56
PV array strings, 12 modules
kW, VP V =446.4 V, IP V =103.2 A
per string
Fronius CL 36.0 Max. output power 36 kW, DC
Grid-connected
Center inverter (with startup voltage: 245 V, MPP
inverter
transformer isolation) voltage range: 230 V to 500 V
String voltage measurement
range ±1000 V DC, accuracy
PV string ±0.5%(±5 V ); nominal string
Another
monitoringphoto
Mersen HMMC6A in the field current measurement range ±20
system A, accuracy ±0.5%(±100mA).
Sampling frequency in
experiments: 0.5 Hz
Rated voltage 1000 Vdc, rated
PV fuses Mersen HP10M15
current 15 Adc
Solar irradiance
sensor
Mersen’s PV Oscilloscope
monitoring board
Dc arc gene
Combiner
box
Differential
Current probe probe
Figure 3.8: The photo of major experimental equipments.
28
Figure 3.9: The photo of PV monitoring board [71].
The switches among these two strings are controllable so that it is easy to make
a short circuit between specific points. For example, the line-line fault with one
module difference is defined as “LL-1 ” in Fig. 3.7. A line-line fault with two
modules difference is denoted as “LL-2 ”. Similarly, the faults “LL-3 ”, “LL-4 ”,
“LL-5 ” and “LL-7 ” can also be created by closing the corresponding switches in
the experimental test bed. Note that we only consider solid faults, which means
zero fault impedance. Besides, this dissertation focuses on line-line faults, which
may be caused either by a single short-circuit fault in grounded or ungrounded
systems, or a double-ground fault in ungrounded PV systems.
3.4 Experimental Results
In the experiments, line-line faults involved with various number of PV modules
(i.e., LL-x, x = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 7) are implemented in the PV lab under real-working
conditions. The fault analysis of transient and post-fault PV system behavior will
be given as follows.
As shown in Fig. 3.7, the line-line fault with 2 module difference is defined as
“LL-2 ” in this dissertation. It has a 16.67% location mismatch since it involves
two-module mismatch between the fault points in the faulted string (normally,
12 modules per string). Similarly, a line-line fault with 5- module and 7-module
difference are annotated as “LL-5 ” with 41.67% mismatch and “LL-7 ” with 58.3%
mismatch, respectively. This section focuses on three representative faults “LL-2 ”,
“LL-5 ” and “LL-7 ”. As predicted in the previous simulation results, the MPPT
of the inverter is still able to work, as long as the faulted PV array can sustain the
working condition of the PV inverter. As a result, the MPPT tends to gradually
increase the faulted string current by decreasing the PV array voltage [1].
In summary, the experimental results have verified our previous research findings
and simulation results.
• LL-2 will remain undetectable by fuse since the faulted string still has a
positive current, which could be difficult to differentiate from other normal-
working strings. This brings the fault detection and protection challenge to
the PV system.
• LL-5 is successfully cleared by fuse in this specific example, which is triggered
by a larger reverse current when the PV inverter checks the open-circuit
voltage of the PV array.

• LL-7 causes a large reverse current into the faulted string, which comes
from other normal PV strings. This large current will be cleared by the fuse
immediately.
In addition, more experimental results including “LL-1 ”, “LL-3 ”, and “LL-4 ”
are given and summarized in Section 3.4.4. It is shown that the more modules
involved in a line-line fault, makes it more likely that it can be cleared by fuses.
Specifically in our example, LL faults with 4 modules or less may be unable to be
cleared by fuses.
3.4.1 Line-Line Fault with 2-Module Difference (LL-2 )
The transient behavior of LL-2 fault is captured by the oscilloscope in Fig. 3.10(a).
Meanwhile, the long-term fault behavior is recorded by the PV monitoring system
in Fig. 3.10(b), which is especially useful for post-fault steady-state analysis. When
LL-2 occurs at time t1 , String #1 current (i1 ) drops from 7.2 A to 2.5 A, and
reaches 2.75 A after 80 ms. Note that the currents of Strings #7 through #12 (i7
to i12 ) are not plotted, since they have similar currents to normal string currents
i2 to i6 in the experiments.
Fig. 3.10(b) shows that MPPT has an effect on the faulted PV array: the array
voltage (vP V ) is reduced gradually in order to find an optimal operating point.
Due to this effect, i1 increases accordingly until a new MPP is reached. Compared
to the pre-fault MPP for the PV array (12 parallel strings; 320 V, 81 A, and 25.9
• Transients
vpv
PV array voltage vpv 3
7.2 A i1 5
i1
2.5 A 2.75 A
LL‐2 fault, with zoom‐in
Fault occurs at time t 1 6.8
6.7
6.6
3130 3135 3140 3145 3150 3155 3160 3165 3170 3175
(a) Transient behavior captured by the oscilloscope (Upper trace vP V , 50

V/div; lower trace i1 , 2.5 A/div; time/division is 10 ms/div).
330
PV array voltage Vpv

325
320
315
310
305
2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300 3400 3500 3600 3700
Time (seconds)
8 String#1 Current I1
7
String#2 Current I2
I3
String current (A)
6 I4
I5
5 Fault occurs
I6
4
Faulted string current
3
Fault is cleared manually t2
t1
2
2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300 3400 3500 3600 3700
Time (seconds)
6.85
6.8
6.75
6.7
6.65
6.6
6.55
2775 2780 2785 2790 2795 2800 2805 2810 2815
(b) Post-fault steady state captured by the PV monitoring board.
Figure 3.10: Experimental results of LL-2 (2-module LL fault).

kW), the post-fault MPP has a 7.34% power loss at the operating point 312 V, 77
A, and 24 kW.
The protection challenge for PV fuses is obvious: the faulted string current (vary-
ing between 2.75 A and 4 A in Fig. 3.10(b)) is too low and will never blow a fuse
(rating current 15 A). As a result, the fault remains in the PV array. When the
fault is manually cleared at time t2 , the MPPT increases vP V until another opti-
mal operating point is found. The detailed I-V curve analysis of similar simulated
fault scenarios has been given previously in Section 3.2 in the dissertation.
Fig. 3.11 illustrates the transient of LL-5 fault and its subsequent fault clearance
by fuses. The PV array has a pre-fault MPP at 327 V, 62.4 A, and 20.4 kW
(under lower solar irradiance than LL-2 ). At time t1 , i1 has an immediate reverse
current (-23 A) at String #1. Notice VP V drops because the PV array has a
changed I-V curve, which has been previously explained. But the MPP voltage
command (VCM D ) given by the MPPT remains the same as the one before the
fault. Therefore, vP V keeps increasing to VCM D after the fault, until VCM D is
updated at t2 . This leads to a maximum reverse current (-25 A) at String #1 in
Fig. 3.11(b). At this moment, the PV power loss caused by the fault is about 40%
of the pre-fault MPP, since the faulted array is operating at 327 V, 37.4 A, and
12.23 kW. Meanwhile, the power dissipation on String #1 is approximately 8.17

vpv PV array voltage
i1
5A
Fault occurs at
t1
-23 A -21 A
LL‐5 fault zoom in 5.45
5.35
5.4
5.3
(a) Transient behavior captured by the oscilloscope (Upper trace vP V , 50 5660 5662 5664 5666 5668 5670
V/div; lower trace i1 , 5 A/div; time/division is 10 ms/div).
400
380 MPPT command

360
is updated
340
Voc check by inverter
320
300
t3
280
5550 5600 5650 5700 5750 5800
Time (seconds)
t4
vpv 330 V 10
280 V
i1 5A
0
String current (A)
Fault cleared t5
-10 by a blown fuse String#1 Current I1
t3 String#2 Current I2
-20
0 A I3
-30 Fault occurs
t1
t2
Faulted string current
t4
I4
I5
Fault occurs I6
-40
5550 at t15600 5650 5700 5750 5800
A 5.5
Time (seconds)
5.4
5.3
5.2
-42 A
5.1
5600 5605 5610
t2 5615

kW (=−25A × 327V ), which is likely to cause module degradations or even fire
hazards if the fault is not cleared promptly.
After t2 , the MPPT begins to continuously look for an optimal working point by
reducing vP V . Similar to the LL-2, i1 is increasing (the magnitude is reducing)
gradually by the MPPT. In our specific example, |i1 | decreases to 18.4 A at time
t3 . At time t4 , this particular PV inverter checks the open-circuit (called “VOC
check”) under poor-performance conditions of the PV array, resulting in a negative
peak of the reverse current, as well as a current drop on other normal strings. The
fuse is triggered by this current peak and it is blown at t5 , showing that the fault
is cleared successfully by the fuse.
LL faults with 7 modules (LL-7 ) has been implemented as shown in Fig. 3.12.
Since String #1 has 7 modules less than other normal strings, it has a much re-
duced open-circuit voltage (VOC ), leading to a significantly changed I-V curve
of the whole PV array. The transient behavior is captured by the scope in
Fig. 3.12(a). After the fault occurs at t1 , the reverse current into String #1 has a
steady current (-42 A), which comes from other normal strings, such as String#2
to String #12. This means that most of PV array current is flowing into faulted
String #1 instead of into the PV inverter. A negative current spike is found as
-57 A at t1 . The additional reverse current other than the steady current (-42 A)
-23 A -21 A
t3
t4
vPV 330 V
280 V
i1 5A
0 A
Fault occurs
at t1
A
LL‐7 fault zoom in
-42 A
t 2
(a) Transient behavior captured by the oscilloscope (Upper trace vP V , 100

V/div; lower trace i1 , 10 A/div; time/division is 500 ms/div).
334
332
330
328
326
324
6500 6550 6600 6650 6700 6750 6800
Time (seconds)
5
String current (A)
4
String#1 Current I1
3
String#2 Current I2
I3
Fault is cleared
2 I4
immediately
I5
1 after it occurs
I6
Fuse is blown (zero current)
0
6500 6550 6600 6650 6700 6750 6800
Time (seconds)
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
6614 6616 6618 6620 6622 6624 6626 6628 6630 6632 6634

may be caused by the discharging at input capacitor of the PV inverter. Notice
that the array voltage VP V drops to 280 V after t1 . This is the maximum voltage
the faulted PV array can sustain (probably close to VOC of the PV array). During
t1 to t2 , the power dissipated on String #1 is about 11.76 kW (=−42A × 280V ),
which could damage the PV wiring and PV modules.
Under this circumstances, the top fuse at String #1 is blown by this large reverse
current (-42A) at t2 . Thus, the fault is cleared successfully. After the fault clear-
ance, the I-V curve of the whole array goes back to normal, except for losing one
string. Meanwhile, the PV array voltage immediately increases to normal and
causes a voltage “overshoot” at t3 . The control loop of the PV inverter regulates
VP V to its MPPT command (VCM D ) at t4 , which is similar to the one before t1 .
After the fault clearance, vP V goes back to normal.
3.4.4 More Experimental Results and Discussion
In addition to the previously discussed faults, three more faults are implemented
in the PV laboratory, including LL-1, LL-3, and LL-4. All experimental results are
summarized in Table 3.3 for comparison and discussion. Because PV faults occur
under different solar irradiance levels, the pre-fault current of the faulted string
varies in Table 3.3. But it does not affect the conclusion that the faulted string
current decreases as more modules are involved in the fault. In addition, normal
strings in the PV array contribute to the reverse current into the faulted string.
Table 3.3: Summary of Experimental Results
Fault
Pre-fault Post-fault
Fault clearance
steady Transient steady state
Type by
state (new MPP)
OCPD?
LL-1 (at New MPP at
I2 =4.2 A No reverse current. ×
String #2) I2 = ∼3.3 A
No reverse current. New MPP at
LL-2 I1 =7.2 A ×
I1 =2.5 A I1 =∼3.5 A
Small reverse current. New MPP at
LL-3 I1 =6.4 A ×
I1 = -3 A I1 =∼0.8 A
Medium reverse
New MPP at
LL-4 I1 =5.7 A current. I1 = -12.7 ×
I1 = ∼-5.5 A
A
I1 increases up
Large reverse current. to -18.4 A √
LL-5 I1 =5 A
I1 = -23 A before fuse is
blown.
Large reverse current. I1 = 0 A after √
LL-7 I1 =5 A
I1 = -42 A fuse is blown.
Therefore, for a line-line fault involving certain modules, more parallel strings in
the PV array tend to cause more reduced string current. Some key remarks from
the experiments include:
• LL faults involving a few modules (e.g. LL-1 to LL-4 ) are difficult to clear by
OCPD (i.e., fuses), since either the faulted string still has a positive current
(LL-1 and LL-2 ) or a small negative current (LL-3 and LL-4 ). Therefore,
theses faults can remain in the PV system and become a safety hazard.
• LL-5 fault is cleared by fuse successfully, which is triggered by the “VOC
check” of the PV inverter. It is necessary to mention that the “VOC check”

depends on the specific PV inverters being used. Even without this “VOC
check,” the fuse will still be blown as long as the magnitude of the faulted
string current is larger than Inf , but it may take a longer time (up to hours)
according to its time-current characteristics [72]. More importantly, the
speed of MPPT plays a key role in the changing rate of faulted string current
(i1 /dt). If the MPPT is updated too fast, |i1 | may be reduced below Inf so
quickly that it never becomes large enough to blow a fuse [1].
• LL-7 has a large reverse current that is easy to clear by fuses. Since the fault
is cleared quicker (within 2 secs) than the MPPT’s response, i1 remains the
same during fault.
3.5 Conclusion
A 35 kW, 500 Vdc commercial-scale PV laboratory has been simulated and utilized
for fault experiments under real-working conditions. The OCPD protection gap,
MPPT response, and PV inverters transient behavior under faults are analyzed
and discussed. Both the simulation results and experimental results show that the
“blind spot” of OCPD exists when the line-line fault only has a few number of PV
modules in the fault path. For example, the fault can be cleared by OCPD when
the fault mismatch is higher than ∼41% (e.g. at least 5 modules of a 12-module
string) in this typical example. Thus the uncleared fault may remain in the system
and become a safety hazard.

Detecting the changed direction of PV-string current may be an convenient way
identify the reverse-current fault (e.g., LL-3 and LL-4 in our specific case). How-
ever, this approach may fail to identify LL-1 and LL-2 faults, since the faulted
string has similar positive current as other normal strings. This brings difficulty
in PV-string monitoring system for fault detection. Therefore, there is an urgent
need of new fault detection method to detect line-line faults which only involve a
few modules.
Chapter 4
Fault Detection Using Outlier
Detection Rules
In order to eliminate the previously discussed “blind spots” in overcurrent protec-
tion devices (OCPD), outlier detection rules (ODR) are proposed for fault detec-
tion in this chapter. By measuring each PV string current, the proposed algorithms
can differentiate the faulted string from the normal strings, even under the condi-
tion when the faulted string still has the positive current. (Note that the OCPD
fails in this case.) Specifically, this chapter of the dissertation demonstrates the
following achievements.
Contribution 1 : Requiring only PV string current, two types of fault detection
using ODR are developed that provide quantitative approaches
to discover the faulted string (called outliers). The first approach

70
Chapter 4. Fault Detection Using Outlier Detection Rules 71
uses the statistical ODR. An alternative approach is called lo-
cal outlier factor (LOF ). Both proposed methods show several
advantages over traditional fault detection methods: 1) simple
to implement, 2) does not rely on weather information, and 3)
suitable for real-time operation.
Contribution 2 : The proposed methods are used on the experimental results in
the PV lab under various conditions, such as line-line fault with
1 module (LL-1 ) and 2 modules (LL-2 ), showing that these faults
(undetectable by OCPD) can be sucessfully detected. In addition,
the performance of the proposed outlier rules are compared and
discussed in detail.
4.1 Features for Fault Detection
To develop a responsive and reliable fault detection algorithm, the first step is
to choose appropriate PV features that are convenient to measure and analyze.
Although the previously discussed PV dynamic conductance gpv may be used for
fault detection (see (3.2) and Fig. 3.4), it can only be found if the global I-V
characteristic of the PV array is scanned when the PV system is off-line. Thus, it
is not easy to observe or use gpv directly in real-time operation. Instead of gpv , the
following two features are more observable and viable for fault detection among
PV strings.
4.1.1 String Current
PV string current is the most convenient feature to detect a fault in a series-parallel
connected PV array. Besides, this feature is usually available when a PV string
monitoring system is installed. Compared with its neighboring strings, a reduced
string current ij on the jth String (j = 1 to N ) might indicate a fault.
4.1.2 String Current Change Rate
A sudden current change at a particular string may indicate an unexpected oper-
ating condition. It represents the PV dynamics that are useful for fault detection
and fault analysis. String current change rate dij /dt(k) of String #j at the kth
sample is defined as
ij (k) − ij (k − 1)
dij /dt(k) = (4.1)
t(k) − t(k − 1)
where ij (k) is the kth sample of String #j current and t(k)−t(k−1) is the sampling
interval. At the moment of the fault, the faulted string current ij usually reduces
and leads to a significant drop of dij /dt, which may be a fault indication.
Based on these two features, ODR for fault detection will be introduced as follows,
which does not require weather information.

4.2 Proposed ODR for PV systems
4.2.1 Statistical ODR
According to [73], an outlier is usually defined as anomalous data with respect to
the majority of the data set. A data set {xi } with i = 1...n can represent PV
string current, where n is the number of strings in parallel. The most common
PV array configurations is the series-parallel connection (see Fig. 3.7). Assuming
each parallel PV string has identical electrical ratings and similar environmental
conditions, then each string should have similar current under normal conditions.
In other words, the majority of PV string currents should have similar values,
except for the outliers. This is the essential idea to identify outliers among PV
strings.
Therefore, given certain environmental conditions, each string current becomes a
univariate variable {xi }. The entire set of string currents can be viewed as random
samples coming from a normal distribution N (µ, σ 2 ), with two parameters such
as mean µ and variance σ 2 (σ is the standard deviation). Assume x1 ...xn are
independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). The normal probability density
function p(x) is defined in (4.2).

1 1 2
p(x) = √ exp − 2 (x − µ) (4.2)
2πσ 2σ
Given a PV array made of a number of PV strings, p(x) is strongly related to
electrical parameters, solar irradiance level and operating temperature on every PV
string. For example, the I-V curves shown in the Chapter 3 are mainly dependent
on solar irradiance level, such that higher irradiance can lead to larger short-circuit
current (ISC ) and therefore higher output power. As solar irradiance is changing
continuously during a day, the parameters of p(x) vary as well. Furthermore, the
true values of µ and σ 2 are unknown in real-world conditions because of limited
samples and measurement noise. Instead, p(x) is estimated using the sample
mean µ̂ in (4.3) and the unbiased sample variance estimate σ̂ 2 in (4.4), based on
maximum likelihood estimation [74].
n
1X
µ̂ = xi (4.3)
n i=1
n
1 X
σ̂ 2 = (xi − µ̂)2 (4.4)
n − 1 i=1
For demonstration purposes only, a normal distribution of PV string currents
under certain environmental conditions is drawn in Fig. 4.1. Every dot represents
a measurement of string current at specific time. Notice that most data values are
located near the true mean µ, except for two values x1 and x2 . By common sense,
x1 may be selected as an outlier, since it is far away (more than 3σ) from µ. But
p(x) True distribution (unknown)
Outlier
Outlier?
x1 x2
μ-3σ μ-2σ μ-σ μ μ+σ μ+2σ μ+3σ
xi
Figure 4.1: Univariate normal distribution of PV string currents {xi }.
it is difficult to identify x2 . This leads to the need of a quantitative approach to
set the outlier detection rules.
For the data set {xi }, assume a reference value x0 , a measure of variation ζ and
a threshold parameter α. The statistical outlier rule (ODR) determines xi as an
outlier if it satisfies the condition below:
|xi − x0 | > αζ (4.5)
Then the ODR defined in (4.5) has the upper bound and lower bound as x0 + αζ
and x0 − αζ, respectively. Since the PV string usually has a reduced i or negative
di/dt at the moment of the fault, for PV systems it is possible to ignore the upper
bound and simplify the ODR to the lower bound only, as shown in (4.6).
xj < x0 − αζ (4.6)
The success of outlier detection greatly depends on the contamination level of the
data set {xi }, which is defined as the fraction of outliers in the data set (4.7)
[73]. Intuitively, a higher contamination level in the data set tends to cause the
deviation in parameter estimation and is likely to bring more difficulty to outlier
detection.
the number of outliers

contamination level = (4.7)
total number of samples
Assuming the distribution of nominal data is symmetric and assigning different
variables into (4.5), three most commonly used statistical ODR are obtained as
follows [73].
• The 3σ rule: x0 = µ̂, ζ = σ̂, where µ̂ is the sample mean, σ̂ is the sample
standard deviation and α = 3. Since µ̂ is sensitive to outliers, the 3σ rule
may break down at the contamination level greater than 10%.
• The Hampel identifier : x0 = x̃, ζ = S, where x̃ is the sample median, α is
usually chosen as 3, and S is defined as below. The Hampel identifier breaks
down at the contamination level greater than 50%.
1
S= median |xi − x̃| (4.8)
0.6745
• The standard Boxplot outlier rule: x0 = x̃, α is usually chosen as 2, and
ζ = Q, where Q = xU − xL , xL is the lower quartile (the 25th percentile) and

xU is the upper quartile (the 75th percentile). Besides, the Boxplot outlier
rule can be extended as (4.9) for an asymmetric distribution of data set as
below. It breaks down at the contamination level greater than 25%.
xi > xU + 1.5Q or xi < xL − 1.5Q (4.9)
4.2.2 Local Outlier Factor (LOF )
The second approach uses a spatial proximity-based local outlier factor (LOF, first
proposed in [75]) for fault detection. The main difference between the statistical
ODR and LOF is that LOF is a scoring technique that assigns an outlier score to
each instance or sample. Therefore, it gives users the freedom to choose the out-
lying threshold. Intuitively, LOF is a density-based outlier detection rule showing
that the density around an outlier is significantly lower than the density of its
local neighbors. Quantitatively, a degree of being an outlier is defined as LOF,
depending on how isolated the outlier is away from its neighbors [75].
At first, several basic notions/definitions are introduced.
• dist(p,q): The distance between object p and q. For a data set of one-
dimensional PV string current xi , Euclidean distance (2-norm distance) sim-
ply becomes the absolute value of xp − xq .

• k-dist(p): The distance of the object p to the k-th nearest neighbor, where
k is a positive integer.
• Nk (p): A set of k nearest neighbors of an object p contains every object in
a given data set D, whose distance from p is no greater than its k-distance.
Nk (p) = {q ∈ D\{p} | dist(p,q) ≤ k-dist(p)}
• reach-dist(p,q): The reachability distance of an object p with respect to
object q (i.e., from p to q) is defined as: reach-dist(p,q)=max{k-dist(q),
dist(p,q)}
• Local reachability density of p is defined as:
kNk (p)k
lrdk (p) = P (4.10)
reach-dist(p,q)
q∈Nk (p)
where kNk (p)k represents the number of objects in Nk (p). Intuitively, it
shows that a larger reachability distance will lead to lower local reachability
density. Note that kNk (p)k could be larger than the number k since multiple
objects may have same distance to the object p.
• LOF of an object p is defined as:
P lrdk (q) P
lrdk (p)
lrdk (q)
q∈Nk (p) q∈Nk (p) 1
LOFk (p) = = · (4.11)
kNk (p)k kNk (p)k lrdk (p)
Note that LOFk (p) is a degree of being an outlier. If LOFk (p) is significantly
higher than its neighbors’, the object p is more likely to be an outlier. LOFk (p)
only has one parameter k and may vary as k changes. The proper range of k
has been discussed in [75] and a large k is usually recommended to highlight the
outlier.
4.3 Fault Detection in the PV Laboratory
4.3.1 Statistical ODR Results
For PV applications, an underperforming or faulted PV string could be viewed
as an outlier if its current i or current change rate di/dt deviates markedly from
other normal ones, assuming PV strings have identical output current under similar
environmental conditions. To verify the effectiveness of ODR in a commercial-scale
PV system, we apply them in the previous LL-2 experimental results shown in
Fig. 3.10.
The estimated solar irradiance is about 830 W/m2 . The outlier rules are applied
to PV string monitoring board #1, leading to the 16.67% contamination level
(= 1/6, one faulted string out of 6 strings per monitoring board). The 3σ rule is
not considered in the following part of this dissertation, since it breaks down at
contamination level higher than 10%, and it will surely fail in this specific example.
4.3.1.1 ODR on String Current i
The lower bound of ODR is calculated at each sampling point in Fig. 4.2. The
zoom-in window shows that the LL-2 fault (undetectable by fuses) can be success-
fully detected by both the Hampel identifier (4.8) and the Boxplot rule (4.9) at
time t1 , since the faulted string current drops below the lower bound of these two
rules.
4.3.1.2 ODR on String Current Change Rate di/dt
ODR is applied on the previously defined di/dt in Fig. 4.3. Similar to ODR on i,
only the lower bound violation is considered. Fig. 4.3 shows a significant negative
spike on di1 /dt below the lower bound of Hampel identifier and the Boxplot rule,
which indicates a fault on String #1. After the fault occurs, |di1 /dt| is often larger
than normal strings. This is explained by its degraded gpv and the changed I-V
curve discussed in Chapter 3.
4.3.1.3 False alarms
Using ODR on i or di/dt alone may cause false alarms since the statistical ODR
becomes aggressive when the majority of samples {xi } are nearly identical, accord-
ing to (4.5) and (4.6). For example, ODR causes false alarms on string current
at time 1532 s in Fig. 4.4. Similarly, ODR causes false alarms on di/dt at time
1540 s and 1542 s in Fig. 4.5. To reduce false alarms, it is possible to send out
R, LL2, lower bound
6.9
Normal strings
6.8
6.7
6.6
6.5
Faulted Lower bound
6.4 of ODR
String #1
2780 2790 2800 2810 2820 2830
7
6.5
i1
6
i2
5.5 i3
String current (A)
i4
5 i5
Faulted
String #1 i6
4.5
current i1 Hampel identifier
4 Boxplot rule
3.5
3 Fault occurs at
2.5
time t1
2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300
Time (second)
Figure 4.2: Apply statistical ODR on string current i1 to i6 of LL-2 experi-

mental results (which cannot be cleared by fuses).
DR, LL2, di/dt, lower bound
Faulted String #1 Normal strings
0.05
-0.05 Lower bound
of ODR
2790 2795 2800 2805 2810 2815
0.5
di1/dt
-0.5
di2/dt
di/dt (A/sec)
di3/dt
-1
di4/dt
Negative spike
-1.5 at di1/dt di5/dt
di6/dt
-2 Hampel identifier
Fault occurs at Boxplot rule
-2.5
time t1
2700 2800 2900 3000 3100 3200 3300
Time (second)
Figure 4.3: Apply statistical ODR on di1 /dt to di6 /dt of LL-2 experimental
results (which cannot be cleared by fuses).
2013-08-21, no partial shading, high solar irradiance
i1
7.25 i2
i3
7.2
Normal strings i4
String current (A) 7.15 i5
i6
7.1
Hampel identifier
7.05
Boxplot rule
6.95
6.9
Lower bound
False alarm of ODR
6.85
1532 1534 1536 1538 1540 1542 1544
Time (second)
Figure 4.4: False alarms caused by ODR on string current

2013-08-21, no partial shading, high solar irradiance
0.02
Normal strings
False alarm
0.01
0
di/dt (A/sec)
-0.01
di1/dt
-0.02
di2/dt
Lower di3/dt
-0.03
bound di4/dt
di5/dt
-0.04
of ODR di6/dt
-0.05
False alarm Hampel identifier
Boxplot rule
1530 1532 1534 1536 1538 1540 1542
Time (second)
Figure 4.5: False alarms caused by ODR on current change rate
alarms only when ODR on i and di/dt are both violated at the same time. Doing
so can potentially eliminate the false alarms in Fig. 4.4 and 4.5.
The other approach is to use the LOF to improve the fault detection performance,
which will be given in the following subsection.

4.3.2 LOF Results
Each PV string current (e.g., i1 ...i6 ) are viewed as an object in LOF. As shown in
Fig. 4.6, the LOF results are plotted in 3 dimensions for better visualization. The
x, y and z axes are representing time, the string number, and LOF, respectively.
Note that the parameter k, the number of nearest neighbors, could be application-
dependent. The practical guidelines for choosing k have been discussed in [75].
Basically, a relatively large k compared to the sample size can highlight the outlier
and give a stable LOF outcome.
In this particular example, k is chosen as 4 (relatively large compared to a data
set of 6 PV strings) for best performance. By setting an alarm threshold θ, the
fault detection rule can be simply as: PV String #j is an outlier if its current
ij satisfies LOFk (ij ) > θ. However, choosing θ is not straightforward and often
requires special consideration [76]. In our specific example, since LOFk (ij ) of
normal strings are usually under 5, we simply choose θ = 5 as the threshold.
Now, the LOF is applied on the previously discussed LL-2. Fig. 4.8(a) shows that
during fault interval from t1 to t2 , LL-2 has a significant increase in LOF, which
is higher than θ so that it can be easily identified as a fault. Under normal condi-
tions, Fig. 4.8(b) shows that LOF can avoid false alarms caused by the statistical
ODR (previously shown in Fig. 4.4 and 4.5). The reason is that LOF uses reach-
dist(p,q)=max{k-dist(q), dist(p,q)} that can reduce the statistical fluctuations of
dist(p,q) [75]. This may avoid the false alarm found in statistical rules.
(a) LOF on LL-2 fault.
(b) LOF on normal conditions.
Figure 4.6: Fault detection using LOF on experimental results of LL-2 and
normal conditions.
4.3.3 More Results under Various Solar Irradiance
In addition to experimental results under high irradiance, LL-2 under medium and
low solar irradiance (∼ 410W/m2 and ∼ 170W/m2 ) are also studied and shown in
Fig. 4.7 and 4.8. The figures illustrate that both of the statistical ODR and LOF
are able to detect the fault at time t1 .
4.4 Discussion
The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed statistical ODR
(e.g., Hampel identifier and Boxplot rule) and local outlier factor (LOF ) for fault
detection using PV string currents and current change rate. Both of them can
successfully detect the line-line fault with small mismatch that may not be cleared
by OCPD. The advantages such as simplicity, responsiveness and requiring no
weather information make them prime candidates for real-time fault detection in
PV string monitoring systems. Furthermore, a comparison between the statistical
ODR and LOF is briefly summarized in Table 4.1.
For both the statistical ODR and LOF, the accuracy of outlier detection relies on
the number of samples {x1 ...xN }. The intuition is that if more samples/measure-
ments are available, the true distribution p(x) can be better estimated. Therefore,
increasing the number of PV strings for outlier detection may decrease the con-
tamination level in the data set and improve the overall performance.
3.6
String current (A) Normal strings
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
Lower bound of ODR
370 375 380 385 390 395 400 405 410 415 420
t1
Faulted String #1 String #1
0.05
String #2
String #3
di/dt (A/sec)
String #4
0 String #5
String #6
Hampel identifier
Boxplot rule
-0.05
370 375 380 385 390 395 400 405 410 415 420
Time (second)
Fault occurs at time t1
(a) Statistical ODR under LL-2 fault at time t1 .
(b) LOF under LL-2 fault at time t1 .
Figure 4.7: LL-2 under medium solar irradiance (∼ 410W/m2 ).

LL‐2, low solar irradiance,
170W/m2
1.5
Normal strings
String current (A)
1.45
1.4
1.35
1.3
1.2715 1.2716 1.2717 1.2718 1.2719 1.272 1.2721 1.2722 1.2723 1.2724 1.2725
t1 Lower bound of ODR
5
x 10
0.05 Faulted String #1 String #1

String #2
String #3
di/dt (A/sec)
String #4
0 String #5
String #6
Hampel identifier
Boxplot rule
-0.05
1.2715 1.2716 1.2717 1.2718 1.2719 1.272 1.2721 1.2722 1.2723 1.2724 1.2725
Time (second) 5
x 10
Fault occurs at time t1
(a) Statistical ODR under LL-2 fault at time t1 .
(b) LOF under LL-2 fault at time t1 .
Figure 4.8: LL-2 under low solar irradiance (∼ 170W/m2 ).

Table 4.1: A brief comparison between the statistical ODR and LOF in PV
fault detection
Outlier Detection
Advantages Disadvantages
Rules
Outlier rules in meaningful
Binary property. May
units. Lower bounds
Statistical ODR become aggressive and
provide easy data
cause false alarms.
interpretation.
Loss of physical meaning in
More reliable. Settable
LOF original data. Higher
outlying threshold.
computational cost.
One limitation of the proposed method is that it may cause false alarms if unknown
partial shading occurs on PV strings. For example in Fig. 4.9, both the statis-
tical ODR and LOF may send out alarms under partial shading on String #9.
Therefore, by measuring string current alone, the proposed methods are difficult
to differentiate line-line faults from partial shadings. In this case, other artificial
intelligence techniques with additional measurements should be adopted [40]. On
the other hand, if the partial shading’s pattern is periodic and can be estimated,
such as using artificial neural network (ANN) [36], the shaded string current may
be corrected to a unshaded value. Then the proposed method should still work on
corrected PV data.
Partial shadings, 1/9/2015 PV data
Partial shading occurs on String #9
String current (A)
Normal strings
2.8
2.6
Lower bound of ODR
2.4 String#7
String#8 Shaded String #9
1.4215 String#9 1.422 1.4225 1.423
String#10 5
x 10
String#11
0.02 String#12
Hampel identifier False alarms on
0.01 Boxplot rule String #9
di/dt (A/sec)
-0.01
-0.02
1.4215 1.422 1.4225 1.423
t1 Time (second) 5
x 10
t2
(a) Statistical ODR under partial shadings.
(b) LOF under partial shadings.
Figure 4.9: False alarms may be caused by partial shading on PV strings.

4.5 Conclusion
To eliminate same “blind spots” in fault detection, this chapter proposes two types
of outlier detection rules (ODR) that are suitable for real-time operation in a PV-
string current monitoring system. The first one uses the statistical ODR, such
as the Hampel identifier and the Boxplot rule. But sometimes they may become
aggressive in fault detection and cause false alarms. To avoid false alarms, one
proposed solution is to use the statistical ODR on multiple features, such as string
current or current change rate. The other proposed solution is to use a machine-
learning outlier rule–the local outlier factor (LOF ), which is the second type of
ODR in this dissertation LOF has settable outlying threshold and shows better
reliability in fault detection. The advantages of the statistical ODR and LOF over
traditional fault detection are: 1) simple to implement, 2) independent of weather
information, and 3) suitable for real-time operation.
The effectiveness of the proposed methods are verified by the experimental results
in the PV laboratory under real-working conditions, including the MPPT response
from the PV inverter. The proposed statistical ODR and LOF can detect the fault
successfully under various solar irradiance levels (e.g., high, medium and low solar
irradiance). A brief comparison between the statistical ODR and LOF and their
limitations under partial shading conditions are also discussed.

Chapter 5
Fault Classification Using
Machine-Learning Algorithms
5.1 Introduction
In addition to fault detection (mainly discussed in Chapter 4), this dissertation
proposes fault classification as another useful feature in PV systems. Fault clas-
sification can indicate the type of fault and further help maintenance people to
expedite the system’s recovery. Based on the prior knowledge of the systems, ma-
chine learning algorithms are usually used to achieve automatic fault classification.
This chapter studies fault classification methods and focuses on graph-based semi-
supervised learning (GBSSL) algorithms for PV fault detection and classifications
(FDC).
92
Chapter 5. Fault Classification Using Machine-Learning Algorithms 93
5.1.1 Existing Solutions and their limitations
Machine learning techniques have been proposed for both fault detection and clas-
sification (FDC) in PV systems [27, 40, 41, 77, 78]. A decision-tree model has been
proposed to detect and classify fault types in PV arrays [40]. A clustering-based
method is used for quantifying PV system’s effects on utility grids [78]. K-nearest
neighbor and support vector machine are used for FDC in solar panels [41].
For example, Fig. 5.1 shows a classifier using Support Vector Machine (SVM)
model that has been trained to identify the open-circuit fault in one string (“OPEN1”)
from the normal condition (“NORMAL”). The classification features use VN ORM
and IN ORM , which will be explained in the following section. The SVM model is
trained using the PV data collected at temperature 30o C in summer. However,
Fig. 5.1 shows that the trained model will mistakenly classify “OPEN1 at tem-
perature 0o C” as normal conditions, since the operating points are shifted away
in winter. Because the operating points of solar arrays are dependent on weather,
they may change over a year. To solve this problem, the fault detection algorithm
needs to be self-learning and should be updated continuously.
Therefore, these supervised-learning classification models have several drawbacks
as:
0.94
NORMAL at 30oC
0.92 OPEN1 at 30oC
Support Vector
0.9 SVM classifier
NORMAL at 0oC
0.88 OPEN1 at 0oC
0.86
Inorm
Misclassified by the SVM

0.84 trained at temperature 30oC
0.82
0.8
0.78
0.76
0.79 0.8 0.81 0.82 0.83 0.84 0.85 0.86
Vnorm
Figure 5.1: Limitation of supervised learning: SVM model trained in summer

will not work properly in winter.
Drawback 1 : As pointed out in Fig. 5.1, the challenge lies in the non-linear oper-
ating point of the PV array (dc side), which varies widely as the en-
vironment changes or solar cells degrade. This means that a trained
model in summer (high irradiance, high temperature) might mis-
takenly classify normal PV operation as a fault during winter (low
irradiance, low temperature). Therefore, the trained model needs
updating continuously over time.
Drawback 2 : The supervised learning models may require a large amount of train-
ing data, which could hinder their effectiveness. Since the training
data are collected in typical faults under real-working conditions, it

is difficult or expensive to obtain.
Drawback 3 : The supervised learning models are designed only based on specific
operating data on certain PV installations. This means the model
is built on a case-by-case basis, and it may not be possible to have a
general fault detection model. In addition, the models are difficult
to visualize by PV maintenance people.
5.1.2 Research Contributions Obtained in this Chapter
To address the issues above, this dissertation proposes graph-based semi-supervised
learning (GBSSL) for fault detection and classification (FDC) in PV arrays. The
proposed method can detect faults that are unnoticeable to conventional OCPD
or GFDI, as well as identify the fault type. Instead of requiring additional sensing
circuit in [27, 40, 41, 77, 78], the proposed method only uses readily available
measurements, such as PV array voltage and array current (commonly used for
MPPT in PV inverters), PV operating temperature and solar irradiance (often
available at weather stations). Therefore, the proposed method avoids additional
hardware installation or extra labor cost to conventional PV systems.
This chapter focuses on two categories of common faults that may be difficult to
detect or clear by conventional OCPD. 1) Line-line fault, defined as an accidental
short-circuiting between two points in the array with different potentials. It may
be caused by a short-circuit fault between two different points or a double ground

fault in PV fields, and 2) Open-circuit fault, defined as an accidental disconnection
at a normal current-carrying conductor, which can be caused by cracking PV cells
or modules, loose string connections or blown PV fuses. Note that ground fault
is not directly discussed in this dissertation, since essentially it is a special case of
line-line faults involving a ground point. Also, it is relatively easy to detect and
clear by GFDI or residual current device (RCD).
In summary, this chapter presents the following research contributions:
Contribution 1 : A new method/new algorithm is presented that normalizes mea-
sured data in a specific manner that allows machine learning to
detect and classify faults that previously were not detectable.
Contribution 2 : For the first time, a graph-based semi-supervised learning (GB-
SSL) model is developed for fault detection and classification in
solar PV arrays. The model has several advantages over the pre-
viously reported solutions, such as low model training cost, self-
learning ability over time in real-time operation, and better data
visualization.
Contribution 3 : The fault detection methods are designed to be included within
the controller of existing PV inverter technologies. The approach
is able to work with most any PV inverter topology and takes
advantage of readily available measurements in existing PV sys-
tems.
Contribution 4 : The fault detection methods are able to detect dangerous line-line
faults, which cannot be detected by most known methods. The
effectiveness of the proposed GBSSL model is validated in both
a simulation platform and a small-scale PV experimental system
under real working conditions.
5.2 Fundamentals of Machine-Learning Algorithms
5.2.1 Fundamentals of Machine Learning Techniques
As a subarea of artificial intelligence, machine learning is a learning algorithm that
automatically extracts knowledge from a given data set. The data set usually is
composed by a number of instances (similar to measurements), and each instance
has two following parts. The first part is called attribute, which is a feature of an
instance that determines its classification. The second part is called class label,
identifying which category this instance belongs to. For example, a data set may
include n number of instances xi (i = 1 to n). Each instance xi is annotated in
a set of {x1,i , x2,i , . . . , xd,i , yi }, including d number of attributes (d-dimensional
data) and a class label yi . After fault classification implementation, class labels yi
will be identified as normal condition or any specific fault type. The data set is
called labeled data if its class labels yi are known. Otherwise, it is unlabeled data.
A large
A large A large amount A few of
amount of
amount of of unlabeled labeled
unlabeled
labeled data data data
data
Training the Training the Training the

model model model
Testing the
Testing the Testing the
model (if
model model
possible)
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 5.2: Simplified flowchart of machine learning techniques: (a) super-

vised, (b) unsupervised learning, (c) semi-supervised learning.
Generally, machine learning techniques can be divided into three categories: super-
vised learning, unsupervised learning and semi-supervised learning (see Fig. 5.2)
[79]. As seen in Fig. 5.2(a), supervised learning uses completely labeled training
data with known class labels. However, labeling data is expensive, requiring human
effort and expertise to classify. In contrast, unsupervised learning in In Fig. 5.2(b)
uses only unlabeled training data. In Fig. 5.2(c), semi-supervised learning (SSL)
falls between supervised learning and unsupervised learning, since it uses both
labeled and unlabeled data for training. This chapter focuses on SSL since it only
requires a few of labeled data and can improve learning accuracy considerably
using inexpensive unlabeled data.
5.2.2 Machine Learning Techniques in PV Systems
The overview of the proposed PV system is shown in Fig. 5.3 schematically, in-
cluding a typical grid-connected PV system and the proposed machine-learning

PV inverter Utility
A DC-DC
DC-AC
Grid
PV V converter
inverter
array (MPPT)
Ipv Machine-
MPP VMPP learning ISC-REF
IMPP A V
GBSSL
Vpv IMPP
model for VOC-REF
VMPP FDC
Reference
modules
Figure 5.3: Overview of the proposed fault detection and classification (FDC)
model for PV systems.
GBSSL model for FDC.
• The typical PV system includes: a PV array, a PV inverter, utility grid
and conventional fault protection devices (i.e. OCPD and GFDI). The PV
inverter harvests the maximum output power from the PV array using the
MPPT algorithm, and feeds the power into the utility grid. The PV array
exhibits non-linear current vs. voltage (I-V ) curves, whether the PV array is
under normal or fault conditions. The previous chapters in this dissertation
have discussed that when the PV array is faulted, it has a changed configu-
ration, resulting in changed I-V curves and reduced maximum power points
(MPP). After that, if the fault is not cleared properly, it is likely that the
PV inverter will still work, as long as the PV array can achieve the minimum
operating voltage of the PV inverter [1]. Consequently, the faulted PV array
is expected to work at a new, but sub-optimal, possibly hazardous MPP
along with its faulted I-V curves. It is worth mentioning that the resulting
deviated PV-array MPPs can provide helpful information for the proposed
GBSSL model.
• The proposed GBSSL model uses readily available PV data. The GBSSL
model for FDC measures the instantaneous short-circuit current reference
(ISC−REF ) and the open-circuit voltage reference (VOC−REF ) of the reference
modules (small, lower power), and receives the PV-array current (IM P P ) and
voltage (VM P P ) at PVs MPP from the inverter. Alternatively, instead of
using reference modules, it is also possible to obtain ISC−REF and VOC−REF
from simulation models using instantaneous solar irradiance and solar cell
temperature monitored by weather stations that are commonly installed in
PV fields. Therefore, the proposed method can take advantage of readily
available PV data without adding significant hardware costs.
• The proposed GBSSL model can be integrated into PV inverters. The GBSSL
model only monitors the PV array (dc side) at MPP under steady state, so
it does not rely on any particular power conversion unit. Thus, another
advantage of the proposed method is the ease of integration within a PV
inverter of any circuit topology.

5.3 Improved Data Visualization using Normal-
ized Parameters
The operating MPPs of PV arrays–PV voltage (VM P P ) and PV current (IM P P )–
range widely over a year. These fluctuations are caused by their dependence on
environmental conditions, such as solar irradiance and temperature. For example,
in Fig. 5.4 the MPPs of a specific PV array under normal (NORMAL) and fault
conditions are simulated and plotted in two dimensions–VM P P vs. IM P P . The
fault conditions (as class labels) are known and include line-line faults (LL) and
open-circuit faults (OPEN). In Fig. 5.4, even though LL faults tend to have lower
VM P P than NORMAL and OPEN, it demonstrates the common occurrence of
overlapping on MPPs. In other words, the faulted PV array may have similar VM P P
and IM P P to a normal array, which creates challenges in identifying faults from
normal conditions. To better visualize and identify the PV faults, the normalized
parameters are introduced in Fig. 5.5 as the data attributes, which show better
data clustering and easier data visualization than the original attributes (VM P P
vs. IM P P in Fig. 5.4). Detailed discussion about Fig. 5.5 will be given in Section
IV. Two new normalized parameters are:
• The normalized PV voltage VN ORM . Defined as VM P P /(NM OD ∗ VOC−REF ),
where NM OD is the number of modules in series per PV string, and VOC−REF
is the open-circuit voltage reference of the PV module.

50
NORMAL
LL
45 OPEN
40
35
30
Impp(A)
25
20
15
10
5
220 240 260 280 300 320 340 360 380 400
Vmpp(V)
Figure 5.4: The overlapping MPPs of a PV array over a wide range of irradi-
ance and temperature. This is difficult for FDC.
• The normalized PV current IN ORM . Defined as IM P P /(NST R ∗ ISC−REF ),
where NST R is the number of strings in parallel in the array, and ISC−REF
is the short-circuit current reference of the PV module.
The helpfulness of the visualization in Fig. 5.5 depends on the accuracy and life-
cycle degradation of the reference measurements. It is assumed that the reference
modules and the PV arrays degrade similarly or at insignificant rates. However,
since the reference modules and the PV array have identical working environments,
such as ultraviolet (UV) exposure, thermal stress, or humidity, the PV array and
reference modules are expected to have similar front surface soling or optical degra-
dation over time [66, 80]. In addition, the effect on VOC−REF and ISC−REF caused
1
NORMAL
LL 30% R =0 LL
f
LL 40% R =0 OPEN
0.95 f
NORMAL
LL 30% R =10
f
0.9
dI
0.85
Inorm
0.8
LL 40% R =10
dV
f
OPEN1
0.75
0.7
OPEN2
0.65
0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9
Vnorm
Figure 5.5: VN ORM vs. IN ORM of a PV array over a wide range of irradiance
and temperature. This is better for FDC.
by the cell temperature difference associated with short-circuit and open-circuit
conditions is insignificant [81]. As a result, it is advantageous to have normalized
parameters VN ORM and IN ORM , which would remain constant, even as the PV
modules degrade uniformly. In this dissertation, the reference modules are chosen
to have the same PV model parameters as other operating modules in the PV ar-
ray. However, any partial shadings or mismatch on the reference modules or over
the PV array may cause bad data in VN ORM and IN ORM , leading to incorrect fault
detection and classification. For this reason, the partial shading on PV arrays is
not considered in the dissertation.

5.4 Graph-based Semi-supervised Learning (GB-
SSL) Algorithm in Solar PV Arrays
5.4.1 Introduction of Graph Data in PV Arrays
Figure 5.6: A graph data consisting of edges and nodes.
The proposed GBSSL presents PV data in an undirected graph G = (X, E) as
shown in Fig. 5.6, which consists of two types of elements, namely vertices X and
edges E. If there is always a path for every vertex to any other vertex, the graph
is said to be connected. It will be assumed that there are no internal loops or
multiple edges in the graph.
Graphs can be used to represent real-world problems, in that graph nodes are
data points, and graph edges are weighted so that they can encode similarities
between points [82]. Therefore, graphs can also be used to represent operating
points (voltage and current) in solar PV arrays.

Labels of NORMAL Labels of FAULT

+ Unlabeled MPPs of NORMAL * Unlabeled MPPs of FAULT
I-V curves of NORMAL I-V curves of FAULT
INORM Run INORM

Label x1
GBSSL
++ ++
* *+ + ++ * *+ + +
** **
Label x 2
VNORM VNORM
(a) (b)
Figure 5.7: An illustrative example of GBSSL for PV: (a) Initial labels x1 and
x2 with unlabeled PV data. (b) Unlabeled data are classified by GBSSL.
The GBSSL algorithm proposed in [82, 83] will be extended to be applied to solar
PV arrays. For illustration purpose, in Fig. 5.7, PV normal condition (NORMAL)
and fault condition (FAULT) are considered in a normalized I-V curve (in 2-D),
which has possible normalized MPPs of a PV array. Note that normalized MPPs
vary slightly during the irradiance and temperature changes, since they tend to
cluster in their own category (NORMAL or FAULT). Also, the GBSSL assumes
that nearby points are likely to have the same class label. The goal of the GBSSL
algorithm is to let the labeled data, for example x1 and x2 in Fig. 5.7(a), spread
their class label information to unlabeled neighboring points in order to achieve a
global stable state. As a result of GBSSL in Fig. 5.7(b), unlabeled data will be
classified by the initial labels accordingly. This demonstrates the growing label
size of the proposed algorithm and its self-learning ability in real-time operation.
As more data are collected and labeled, the GBSSL for FDC on this specific PV
installation is improved. Thus, a few initial labeled data allow a large amount of
unlabeled data to be classified.
5.4.2 Detailed GBSSL Algorithm for FDC
A data set X = {x1 , . . . , x2 , xl+1 , . . . , xn } is represented by a d × n matrix as
(5.1) shown below, in which each column vector xi = [x1,i x2,i . . . xd,i ]T1×d is an
instance in the data set X. A label set L = {1, . . . , c} has the number of c class
labels. A label column vector is yi = [y1 y2 . . . yn ]T1×n , in which each entry yi ∈ L
representing the class label of the instance xi . The first l instances xi (i ≤ l) in X
are labeled data with labels yi . The remaining instances xu (l + 1 ≤ u ≤ n) in X
are unlabeled data which have yu = 0 (l + 1 ≤ u ≤ n).
 
x1,1 . . . x1,l x1,l+1 . . . x1,n 
 
 
 
x . . . x2,l x2,l+1 . . . x1,n 
 2,1 
X= (5.1)
 

 .. .. 

 ... . . ... 

 
 
xd,1 . . . xd,l xd,l+1 . . . x1,n
 
d×n
Specifically, by using the proposed normalized attributes shown in Fig. 5.5, the
matrix X has two rows (d = 2, two dimensions for VN ORM and IN ORM ) and n
number of columns. The two entries for each column vector xi are defined in (5.2)
as an instance of PV measurement at time ti .

xi = [VN ORM i IN ORM i ]T (5.2)
Start
Initialization of labeled
Step1
data x1... xl
Record new
(unlabeled) data xl+1... Step5
Step2 xn, and build matrices
X, Y, Z, W, D, and S. PV status
indication
Run GBSSL and obtain
Step3 the solution matrix F
Update all labels

Step4 in Z and Y
Figure 5.8: Overview of the proposed GBSSL model for FDC in PV sys-tems.
As shown in Fig. 5.8, there are five steps in the flowchart of the proposed GBSSL
algorithm for FDC. Detailed explanations are given as follows.
Step 1): First, the prior knowledge about the system is given, including the initial
labeled data x1 , . . . , xi and their class labels y1 , . . . , yi . For example, the
number of class labels is c = 3 in our PV application. Thus yi =1, 2 or 3
represent NORMAL, LL or OPEN conditions.
Step 2): New instances are recorded with unknown labels (yu = 0, l + 1 ≤ u ≤ n).
Then the data set matrix X and the label column Y are constructed
accordingly. Using the label column Y , a label matrix Z is established of
size n × c (c = 3 in our PV application), whose elements zij at the ith
row and the jth column are defined in (5.3).


 1, if yi = j ∈ {1, . . . , c}

zij = (5.3)

 0, otherwise

After that, a weight matrix W (size n × n) is introduced to represent
the closeness of its entries wij as defined in (5.4). Thus, the matrix W
is a pair-wise relationship matrix on the data set X with zero diagonal
elements.

 exp(−||xi − xj ||2 /2σ 2 ), if i 6= j


wij = (5.4)

 0,
 if i = j
where σ = 1 as the bandwidth parameter. For example, in Fig. 5.6 the
edges between the points xi and xj in the graph are weighted by the
element wij . Equation (5.4) implies that if i 6= j, wij is large when xi
and xj are close to each other, and small when they are far way. Next,
a matrix S = D−1/2 W D−1/2 (size n × n) is established, where D is a
diagonal matrix with the diagonal element (dii ) equal to the sum of the
P
ith row of the matrix W : dii = j wij . Note that the weight matrix W
is normalized symmetrically.
Step 3): Once the matrices Z and S are built, the proposed GBSSL can be im-
plemented to find the classification solution matrix F according to (5.5),
where 0 < α < 1 and (I − αS)−1 can be viewed as a graph or diffusion
kernel [82].
F = lim F (t) = (I − αS)−1 Z (5.5)

t→∞
The solution matrix F is a n × c matrix (the same size as the matrix Z)
with nonnegative entries fij , where the row vector is Fi = [fi,1 fi,2 . . . fi,c ].
 
 f1,1 f1,2 . . . f1,c 
 
 
 
f
 2,1 f2,2 . . . f2,c 

F = (5.6)
 

 .. .. 

 . . 

 
 
fn,1 fn,2 . . . fn,c
 
n×c
Step 4): The label matrix Z and label column vector Y can be updated based
on the classification result–the matrix F found previously. The rule of
classification is straightforward: The matrix F corresponds to a classifi-
cation criteria on the point set X by labeling each instance xi as a label
yi = arg maxj≤c fij . In other words, the class label for each point xi
will be chosen as the class j (1 ≤ j ≤ c) if fi,j is the maximum entry
in the corresponding row vector Fi . For example, there are 3 classes in
the PV application (c = 3), in relation to class labels Class1–NORMAL,

Class2–LL, and Class3–OPEN. For the instance xi , if the correspond-
ing row vector Fi equals to [0.1, 0.2, 1.3], then xi will be classified into
Class3–OPEN, so that yi = 3, since the 3rd entry in Fi has the maximum
value.
Step 5): Fault detection and classification results will be indicated continuously. If
any faults are identified, fault alarms will be sent out.
5.5 Simulation Results
5.5.1 Simulated PV Systems
Using the widely used one-diode model [84] for each individual solar module/-
panel, this dissertation builds another simulation PV system (17.6kW) in MAT-
LAB/Simulink consisting of 10 × 10 PV modules (monocrystalline silicon) that is
capable of studying faults among modules. Note that this simulation system is
smaller than the simulation system presented in Chapter 3 (35kW, 12 × 12 PV
modules). The schematic diagram is shown in Fig. 5.9. The number of series mod-
ules per string is NM OD = 10, and the number of parallel strings is NST R = 10.
The main parameters of each PV module at standard test conditions (STC) are as
follows: the maximum power PM P P =176W, the open-circuit voltage VOC =44.4V,
the maximum power voltage VM P P =35.7V, the short-circuit current ISC =5.4A,
the maximum power current IM P P =4.95A.

GFPD
Pos. + IPV
grid
Open-
circuit
I1 I2 fault I9 I10
Ig=0
Line-line VPV
PV module
fault Fault2
Fault1
Series fuse for
Rf Rf
Neg. _
Figure 5.9: Line-line faults and open-circuit faults in a simulated PV system.
5.5.2 Faults in PV Systems
As shown in Fig. 5.9, there are two categories of faults in the PV systems: line-
line faults (LL) and open-circuit faults (OPEN). The normalized MPPs under a
variety of normal and fault conditions have been plotted in Fig. 5.5.
1) Normal condition (NORMAL)
Under a wide range of environmental conditions of changing solar irradiance
and temperature, the normalized MPPs have the following operating range:
VN ORM ∈ (0.77, 0.90) and IN ORM ∈ (0.86, 0.91).

2) Line-line fault (LL)
A variety of line-line faults without or with fault resistance (Rf = 0 Ω or 10
Ω) are studied. The fault resistance for typical line-line PV faults is considered
as 0Ω at solid faults, or as 10 Ω which may be caused by poor connections or
dc arcs [28]. The fault between the fault point Fault1 and negative conductor
(Fault1-Neg) in Fig. 5.9 is defined as “30% location mismatch (LL 30% ),” since
it involves 3-module mismatch between the fault points in the faulted string
(normally 10 modules per string). Similarly, the Fault2-Neg fault is defined as
“40% location mismatch (LL 40% )”. Compared with NORMAL, IN ORM under
LL is slightly reduced to a range of (0.81, 0.91), but VN ORM is significantly
decreased which lies in a wide range of (0.57, 0.78). The reason is that the
MPPT tends to reduce VM P P to reach the sub-optimal MPP under LL faults,
leading to a reduced VN ORM . Meanwhile, IN ORM may be reduced as well, since
the fault tends to reduce IM P P .
3) Open-circuit fault (OPEN)
Open-circuit faults on one string (OPEN1) and two strings (OPEN2) are in-
cluded in Fig. 5.5. Notice that VN ORM of OPEN faults remains the same as
the one in NORMAL conditions. But IN ORM is reduced proportionally by the
number of lost strings, due to the parallel connection of PV strings.

5.5.3 Simulation of GBSSL for FDC
1) Initial Labels
As shown in Fig. 5.5, the normal condition is annotated as NORMAL; the line-
line faults include “LL 30% Rf =0,” “LL 30% Rf =10,” “LL 40% Rf =0,” and
“LL 40% Rf =10;” the open-circuit faults include “OPEN1” and “OPEN2.”
The number of initial labels is only 10 (approximately 1.4% of 697 instances in
each specific fault) for each of the previously mentioned PV conditions. The
initial label data are PV MPPs under limited environmental conditions: solar
irradiance ranging from 450 to 900W/m2 and ambient temperature fixed at
20o C. One advantage of the GBSSL is that it uses only use a few initial labels
to classify a large amount of new PV operating data, which are called test data
as below.
2) Measurement Uncertainty
The accuracy and effectiveness of any GBSSL methods depend on the reliabil-
ity of the measured signals. Measurement can be expressed as the following
equation.
measurement = best estimate ± uncertainty (5.7)
To successfully identify the fault type, the measured instances in three main
fault categories (NORMAL, LL and OPEN) should have no overlapping in the
normalized parameters (i.e., VN ORM and IN ORM in Fig. 5.5). In our specific
example shown in Fig. 5.5, the minimum necessary distance between any two
categories in the horizontal axis (VN ORM ) and the vertical axis (IN ORM ) are
annotated as dV and dI, respectively. To avoid overlapping, the measurement
uncertainty in VN ORM and IN ORM should be no more than dV /2 and dI/2,
respectively. From the simulations in Fig. 5.5, dV = 0.02 and dI = 0.035. This
means that the measurement uncertainty in VN ORM , denoted by ∆VN ORM , must
satisfy ∆VN ORM < 0.01. Similarly, ∆IN ORM < 0.0175 must be satisfied for the
GBSSL method to work. If it is assumed that the reference modules have higher
accuracy measurement equipment, then the reference signal measurement error
is relatively small compared to the array voltage and current measurements.
Then in our example for the NM OD = 10 modules in series for each string
with each panel having VOC−REF =44.00V (at STC), this would lead to the
requirement that ∆VM P P (the PV array voltage measurement error) should be
less than 4.40V = 0.01 ∗ NM OD ∗ VOC−REF . Similarly, since each PV panel
is assumed in the simulation to have ISC−REF = 5.40A (at STC), and there
are NST R = 10 paralleled strings, the acceptable PV array current (into the
inverter) measurement error ∆IM P P should be less than 0.945A = 0.0175 ∗
NST R ∗ ISC−REF .
However, it is possible that the measurement error for the reference modules
may not be negligible. In that case, the approaches of [85] may be used to
provide bounds for the individual measurement errors: Consider a normaliza-
a
tion function as f (a, b) = N ·b
, where N is a constant, a and b are measure-
ments with uncertainties ∆a and ∆b. In our PV application, the normalization
function is either VN ORM or IN ORM ; the parameter a can represent VM P P or
IM P P ; and the parameter b can represent VOC−REF or ISC−REF . The constant
N = NM OD = NST R is 10. Then the propagation of the measurement uncer-
tainty in f (a, b) is defined as ∆f in the following equation [85].
∂f 2 ∂f 2
∆f 2 = ∆a2 + ∆b2
∂a ∂b
(5.8)
∆a2 a 2
= + ∆b2
(N · b)2 −N · b2
If we assume ∆a ≥ N · ∆b and a ≤ N · b, we can simply find the maximum ∆f
in (5.9).
√
2 · ∆a (5.9)
∆fmax =
a
For this specific example with uncertainty in both the reference modules and
PV array measurements, VM P P should be less than 3.10V and similarly IM P P
should be less than 0.668A. It is worth mentioning that the calculated mea-
surement uncertainties are only good to identify the specific faults in Fig. 5.5.
For a different PV system, the normal and fault conditions may exhibit various
dV , dI or other parameters. This is likely to result in changed measurement
uncertainties.
3) Test data
In order to test the robustness of the proposed GBSSL model for PV FDC, two
types of PV data are utilized that are not included in initial labels, namely new
environmental conditions and new fault conditions.
• First, we use the PV data under wide-ranging environmental conditions
that the GBSSL has hardly seen before. To cover all possible working
conditions, the PV simulation covers the combinations of module-plane
solar irradiance (GT ) extensively varying from 200W/m2 to 1000W/m2
with step change of 50W/m2 , and ambient temperature (Tamb ) changing
from -10o C to 30o C by 1o C. It is useful to test the robustness of the
proposed GBSSL. The solar cell temperature (Tcell ) can be estimated by
a simplified empirical function in (5.10), where the nominal operating cell
temperature (N OCT ) is chosen as 50o C [86].
N OCT − 20o C
Tcell = Tamb + · GT (5.10)
800W/m2
• Second, new fault conditions (could be more challenging) are added into
the test data, including “LL 10% Rf =0,” “LL 10% Rf =10,” “LL 20%
Rf =0,” “LL 20% Rf =10,” open-circuit faults on 3 strings (OPEN3) and
4 strings (OPEN4). These types of faults are not included in the initial
data so they are “unseen” for the GBSSL model. They are meant to test
the performance of the GBSSL on new data set.
4) How GBSSL works at PV Test Data
Test data are fed into the GBSSL model one after another as real-time op-
eration. This means only one new instance at every GBSSL iteration, which
implies that n = l + 1 in (5.1). The initial labels for the GBSSL are illustrated
in the normalized parameters shown in Fig. 5.10. The FDC procedure is ex-
plained using the following example: At time t = t1 , there is a new instance (x1 )
entering the proposed model, which indicates a sudden change of PV operating
point. Based on the given initial labels as well as the similarity between x1 and
various classes, it is clear to see that x1 is closer to “NORMAL” than any other
cluster. Therefore, GBSSL will classify x1 as class “NORMAL” and store it as
a new label. Thus, the size of labeled data can increase as more data is collected
and identified, demonstrating the self-learning ability of the GBSSL. Similarly,
new data points x2 at t = t2 and x3 at t = t3 will be correctly classified as “LL”
class and “OPEN” class, respectively. As previously discussed, a gradual and
uniform PV aging over years is likely to be classified as “NORMAL,” since it
is a slow deviation from “NORMAL” working MPPs. Therefore, the proposed
GBSSL may avoid nuisance tripping on such events.

0.95
NORMAL NORMAL
LL
x1 OPEN
0.9 x1
x2
x2 x3
0.85 x4
x4
Inorm
0.8
x3
LL
0.75
OPEN
0.7
0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9
Vnorm
Figure 5.10: An illustrative example: new data points x1 and x3 will be

classified as classes NORMAL and OPEN respectively, by the proposed GBSSL
model. Similarly, data points x2 and x4 will be classified as LL.
In the previous discussion the proposed GBSSL always utilized the PV arrays MPP
under both normal and fault conditions, which could be achieved by the MPPT of
the inverter. It is worth mentioning that the GBSSL can also successfully identify
the fault even when the PV array deviates from its true MPP to a “sub-MPP.” For
example, in some severe fault circumstances, the PV array’s MPP voltage (VM P P )
may become below the minimum MPP voltage of the PV inverter (VIN V −M IN ).
As a result, instead of VM P P , the PV array is controlled to work at VIN V −M IN
as a sub-MPP by the inverter. In particular, the fault “LL 40% Rf =0” under
GT =800W/m2 and Tamb = 20o C has the following parameters: VM P P =240 V,
IM P P =38.9 A, VOC−REF = 40.28 V and ISC−REF = 4.374 A. If the PV array
voltage is clamped by the inverters VIN V −M IN at 250V, then PV array current

(IP V ) is found as 37.08 A (smaller than IM P P ). Therefore, VN ORM is redefined as
VIN V −M IN /(NM OD ∗ VOC−REF ) =0.621. Similarly, IN ORM becomes IP V /(NST R ∗
ISC−REF ) =0.848, which is smaller than the IN ORM at NORMAL. This operating
point is annotated as point x4 in Fig. 5.10. In the similar classification process
as x2 , it is obvious to see x4 will be classified as line-to-line fault, in “LL” class,
successfully.
5.5.4 Simulation Results
To fairly test the effectiveness of the proposed GBSSL and avoid the effects from
data occurring sequences, the simulation focuses on the worst-case scenario of fault
detection and classification (FDC)–the GBSSL only uses initial labels for FDC and
does not update the calculated labeled data (the Step 4 in Fig. 5.8 is neglected).
Thus, any particular test data can be the first input data that the GBSSL learns
in the PV system. The detection accuracy and classification accuracy are defined
in (5.11) and (5.12). The simulation results of FDC for a variety of PV conditions
are summarized in Table 5.1.
correct # of detection
Detection Accuracy = (5.11)
total # of instances
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
New LL faults
0.75 are overlapping
with NORMAL
Inorm
0.7 NORMAL
LL
0.65 OPEN
LL 10% Rf=0
0.6
LL 10% Rf=10
0.55 LL 20% Rf=0
LL 20% Rf=10
0.5
OPEN3 OPEN3 and OPEN4
OPEN4 are closer to OPEN
0.45
0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9
Vnorm
Figure 5.11: New fault data: “OPEN3” and “OPEN4” can be identified
successfully, but “LL 10% Rf =0”, “LL 10% Rf =10”, “LL 20% Rf =0” and
“LL 20% Rf =10” may be difficult to detect since they are overlap-ping with
“NORMAL”.
correct # of classification
Classification Accuracy = (5.12)
total # of instances
By using only 1.43% (=70/4879) of the total data as initial labels, the proposed
GBSSL model can detect and classify PV data under various classes, including
Table 5.1: Summary results of fault detection and classification
Fault Detailed PV
Graph-Based SSL Results
Category Conditions
Initial of Detection Classification
Total Data Accuracy Accuracy
NORMAL NORMAL 100% 100%
LL30% Rf = 0 10 labels 100% 100%
LL30% of 697 for
LL each type; 100% 100%
Rf = 10
70 labels
LL40% Rf = 0 100% 100%
of 4879 in
LL40% total. 100% 100%
Rf = 10
OPEN1 100% 100%
OPEN
OPEN2 100% 100%
LL10% Rf = 0 1.43% 1.43%
LL10% 0 of 697
LL (new) 0% 0%
Rf = 10 for each
LL20% Rf = 0 type (new 78.19% 78.19%
LL20% faults)
37.3% 37.3%
Rf = 10
OPEN OPEN3 100% 100%
(new) OPEN4 100% 100%
NORMAL, LL and OPEN. Specifically, the GBSSL is able to identify LL faults suc-
cessfully that are undetectable by conventional OCPD, such as “LL 30% Rf =0,”
“LL 30% Rf =10,” “LL 40% Rf =0,” and “LL 40% Rf =10.”
In addition, Fig. 5.11 shows that the proposed model can work with new types
of faults, even if they are not listed in the initial label set. For “OPEN3” and
“OPEN4” PV faults, the proposed model can identify them successfully, since
they are more similar to “OPEN” in the initial labels–similar VN ORM but reduced
IN ORM . However, for “LL 10% Rf =0,” “LL 10% Rf =10,” “LL 20% Rf =0” and
“LL 20% Rf =10” of LL faults, the proposed model may misclassify them as NOR-
MAL, because they are overlapping with NORMAL in the initial labels. The more
overlapping between the LL fault and NORMAL, the more likely the LL is mis-
classified as NORMAL. Also, since “LL 10% Rf =0 or Rf =10” and “LL 20% Rf =0
or Rf =10” can only be misclassified as NORMAL, their detection accuracy and
classification accuracy are the same (see Table 5.1).
5.5.5 Discussion
The success of FDC relies on the distinguishable data points in the 2-D normalized
parameters (i.e., VN ORM vs. IN ORM ). The simulation results show that sometimes
certain aspects of a PV array’s size, fault type and fault resistance (Rf ) can
make the operating point difficult or even impossible to identify. Detection and
classification errors may be caused by overlapping between NORMAL and LL. This
brings difficulty to the GBSSL model to identify the new PV data near their border.
For instance, under a wide range of solar irradiance and ambient temperature, the
overlapping may occur between the LL with 20% mismatch or less (LL≤20%)
and NORMAL in the plotting of VN ORM vs. IN ORM (see Fig. 5.11). For this
reason, the LL≤20% may be misclassified as NORMAL by the GBSSL, leading
to a protection challenge in the PV array, especially when the fault resistance
(Rf ) becomes significant, e.g. 10 Ω or more. One possible way to eliminate this
“blind spot” in such a large PV array to increase the number of voltage or current
measurement in the PV array, such as using additional current sensors in sub-
arrays/strings [70].
Another limitation in GBSSL classification is that it may become vulnerable to
bad data, which could be caused by measurement noise, communication error or
poor electrical connections. If the GBSSL uses a bad data, it may have incorrect
FDC result (i.e., wrong class label) and cause false alarms. During the GBSSL’s
self-learning process, the incorrect class labels may be propagated to the next
data point. To solve this problem, digital filter, data pre-treatment and outlier
detection rules have been proposed to eliminate the bad data [70, 73, 77, 87].
These types of technical challenges are typical of many machine learning methods,
particularly for GBSSL.
5.6 FDC Experiments in PV Systems
5.6.1 Experimental Setup
A small-scale grid-connected PV system is built to create and record both normal
and fault experiments under real-working conditions, such as varying irradiance
and temperature (see Fig. 5.12 and Fig. 5.13). The PV array consists of 8 PV
strings in parallel and each string has 2 modules in series.
The detailed parameters of main PV components are given in Table 5.2. Note
that the reference modules have identical electrical parameters and environmental
Grid-connected
GFPD inverter
Ipv
Open- A
circuit fault + V
Utility
grid
... Ig=0 Isc-ref

A
Vpv
. . . Short-circuit current reference
V Voc-ref
Rf
Line-line _ Open-circuit voltage reference
fault
Figure 5.12: Schematic diagram of the experimental PV system.
conditions as the PV array. In the experiments, a moving average filter with a
window size of 9 samples is used to reduce the measurement noise. Alternatively,
the Kalman filter can be developed for measurement noise reduction [87].
Similar to previous simulation results, two types of faults have been created in the
PV array: 1) A solid line-line fault between the middle of one string and negative
conductor (LL 50% Rf =0), and the same LL with fault resistance Rf = 20Ω
(LL 50% Rf =20); 2) An open-circuit fault on a string (OPEN1). During the
experiment, the solar irradiance is ranging between 320W/m2 and 500W/m2 , and
the solar cell temperature is changing between 26o C and 33o C.
It is necessary to mention that the fault current of all faults is sufficiently small
that it cannot be detected by OCPD (e.g., fuses). As previously explained, though,
it still remains a safety hazard [1]. If the inverter can detect the fault with the
proposed algorithm, it might be able to send an alarm signal to users or shut

Figure 5.13: Photo of the experimental PV system.
Table 5.2: Experimental PV Components
Equipment Parameters
Type Detailed Parameters

At STC: VOC = 18V, ISC
PV modules and
Power Film = 0.9 A, VM P P = 14V,
reference
(amorphous silicon) IM P P = 0.75A, PM P P =
modules
10.5W
2 × 8 modules At STC: PM P P = 168W,
Entire PV array
configuration VM P P = 28V, IM P P = 6A
Max. output power 190W,
min. start voltage 28V,
Grid-connected Enphase
MPPT voltage range
inverter microinverter M190
(VIN V −M IN to VIN V −M AX ):
22 to 40V
down automatically. Therefore, by detecting such faults, the proposed method
can significantly improve the overall reliability and safety of the PV system.
The flowchart of the GBSSL model for FDC has been given in Fig. 5.8. The first
step in the flowchart is to obtain the PVs initial labels. We let the PV array
operate for a short period of time (e.g. less than one minute) in each condition.
Meanwhile, the GBSSL model records the operating data as initial labels in the
normalized parameters, such as VN ORM and IN ORM (see Fig. 5.14). Since the
GBSSL requires only a few data sets (e.g., 10 points for each condition) as the
initial labeled data, it saves time and avoids tedious training processes reported in
the literature [40, 78]. Once the initial labels are found, the GBSSL is ready for
real-time FDC. The PV experimental events follow the sequence of “NORMAL,”
“OPEN1,” “NORMAL,” “LL 50% Rf =20,” “NORMAL,” “LL 50% Rf =0” and
“NORMAL.” As new data are recorded, the GBSSL will categorize each new data
point by using the proposed algorithm, update their classification labels, and send
out fault alarms if necessary. In the experiments, there are approximately 1000
experimental data points associated with each condition, and the initial labels are
only 1% of their dataset. The sampling frequency is arbitrarily chosen as 5 Hz in
the experiment, but it can be increased to perform more responsively in FDC.
5.6.2 Experimental Results
As shown in Fig. 5.15, the experimental PV data under normal conditions or post-
fault steady state are classified one after another by the GBSSL. As discussed in
previous simulation results, the experimental instances under the same condition
have distinct clusters in groups that do not overlap with another category. The
variation of the operating points in the same cluster is caused by changing envi-
ronmental conditions and steady-state oscillations due to the MPPT (e.g., perturb
0.55
LL 50% Rf=20
0.5
NORMAL
Inorm
0.45
OPEN1
LL 50% Rf=0
0.4
Initial labels of NORMAL

Initial labels of LL 50% Rf=0 and Rf=20
Initial labels of OPEN1
0.35
0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75
Vnorm
Figure 5.14: Initial labels for GBSSL in experiments.
& observe). Table 5.3 summarizes the experimental results and verifies the FDC
effectiveness of the proposed GBSSL under real-working conditions. As have been
noted in [1, 77], these LL faults often do not have large reverse current so that
they cannot be identified or cleared with known commercial OCPD.
The “NORMAL,” “LL 50% Rf =0,” “LL 50% Rf =20” and “OPEN1” in our par-
ticular case can be identified 100% correctly. This high accuracy is achieved thanks
to the distinguishable clusters in the Fig. 5.15. Specifically, the PV array at “NOR-
MAL,” “OPEN1” and “LL 50% Rf =20” is able to work at its own MPP. However
at “LL 50% Rf =0,” the VM P P of the faulted PV array is significantly reduced
below the inverters VM IN −IN V . Therefore, the VP V will be clipped at VM IN −IN V

0.55
LL 50% Rf=20 NORMAL
0.5
Inorm
0.45
LL 50% Rf=0 OPEN1
0.4
NORMAL
LL
OPEN1
0.35
0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75
Vnorm

Figure 5.15: GBSSL results of NORMAL, LL and OPEN1.
as a sub-MPP (similar to the point x4 in Fig. 5.10). In summary, the experimental
results are consistent with the previous simulation findings:
• Compared with “NORMAL,” “OPEN1” has similar VN ORM but IN ORM is
decreased proportionally to the number of lost strings.
• “LL 50% Rf =20” has reduced VN ORM and slightly reduced IN ORM .
• Since the PV array at “LL 50% Rf =0” is working at sub-MPP, both VN ORM
and IN ORM are reduced compared to “NORMAL” conditions.

Table 5.3: Experimental Results of Fault Detection and Classification
Fault
Detailed PV Solar Ir-
Cate- Graph-Based SSL Results
Conditions radiance
gory
Initial of
Detection Classification
Total
Accuracy Accuracy
Data
No fault 320–
NORMAL 10 labels 100% 100%
(VP V = VM P P ) 500W/m2
of 1000
LL50% Rf = 0 for each
(VP V is clipeed ∼335W/m2 condition. 100% 100%
LL by VIN V −M IN )
LL50%
Rf = 20 ∼340W/m2 100% 100%
(VP V = VM P P )
OPEN1
OPEN ∼420W/m2 100% 100%
(VP V = VM P P )
5.6.3 Discussion
To apply GBSSL, initial labeled data was generated by measuring data from the
intentionally created experimental PV faults. This was simple and safe for the
small-scale benchmark system. However, for larger PV systems, the generation
of real PV faults could associate with large fault current, potential safety issue
and additional labor cost, which may hinder its practical application in PV field.
To avoid these issues, it might be possible to create initial label data based on
PV simulation models. This may bring safety, flexibility, portability, and cost-
reduction to the proposed GBSSL. Without loss of generality, the simulated initial
labels should follow the fault characteristics discovered by this dissertation.

5.7 Conclusion
Some solar PV faults have small fault current so they may not be cleared by over-
current protection devices (OCPD). Thus, the faults can remain hidden in the
PV system, resulting in possible dangers associated with it (sub-optimal perfor-
mance, dc arcing, fire hazard, etc.). To identify these hidden faults, for the first
time a graph-based semi-supervised learning (GBSSL) has been propose for fault
detection and classification (FDC) in solar PV arrays. It increases the PV’s safety
and reliability by detecting these faults (unnoticeable by OCPD). In addition, the
proposed method is able to identify the specific fault type so that PV users can
expedite the system restoration procedure.
To better visualize the PV data under normal and fault conditions, this chapter
first develops new attributes using the normalized voltage and normalized cur-
rent. Different from previous works, the proposed GBSSL model only requires a
few points of the costly labeled data (∼1% of the total data set), while making
use of inexpensive unlabeled data. The GBSSL algorithm is first analyzed and ex-
plained in detail through simulation results. In addition, the self-learning ability of
GBSSL is proved as the label set can be updated over time during weather changes
or PV arrays degrade. Furthermore, the proposed method does not depend on any
particular PV inverter topologies and only uses readily available measurements in
existing PV systems–such as PV-array voltage, array current, operating tempera-
ture and irradiance–requiring no additional hardware installations.

Chapter 6
Conclusions and Future Work
The research presented in this dissertation has reviewed the existing fault detec-
tion and protection solutions and their limitations, discovered the shortcomings in
overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) in PV systems, and developed new fault
detection and classification solutions to eliminate the fault protection gap. The
main contributions of the research are presented below as well as the recommen-
dations for future work.
6.1 Conclusions
The achieved results and major research contributions of this dissertation include:
131
Chapter 6. Conclusions and Future Work 132
• In Chapter 2, the existing solutions of fault detection, protection,
classification and location are reviewed and their limitations are
identified.
– Literature review about fault detection, classification, and location solu-
tions is presented in three categories, such as quantitative model-based
solutions, process-history based solutions, and signal-processing based
solutions. Their advantages and limitations are compared and discussed
in detail.
– Among these solutions, ground fault detection interrupters (GFDI) and
overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) are widely used in the U.S. PV
market, since they are required by U.S. PV standards. However, the
protection gaps in GFDI and OCPD may exist under certain conditions,
that can lead to reported fire hazards in the literature. For GFDI, it
is shown that it may be vulnerable to double-ground fault in PV ar-
rays, leading to previously reported fire hazards in the U.S. Specifically,
when the first ground fault occurs between the negative conductor and
the ground, GFDI may not be able to detect or clear the fault since
the ground-fault current is relatively low. After that, if the second
ground faults happens between the ungrounded current-carrying con-
ductor (i.e., the positive conductor) and the ground, a high-magnitude
ground-fault current will be created and it is likely to blow the GFDI
(e.g., fuses). Unfortunately, the first and the second ground fault points
contribute to a closed fault path so that the high-magnitude fault cur-
rent can flow continuously without interruption. Since the fault current
can be much higher than the current rating of the conductors, the fault
current may generate excessive heat in the conductor, leading to con-
ductor insulation breakdown and fire hazards.
– The shortcomings of OCPD have been discussed in this dissertation.
Specifically, according to the standards, OCPD is rated based on the
maximum current rating of the PV modules. However, since solar PV
arrays are current-limited power sources and their output characteris-
tics are highly dependent on the solar irradiance level and fault loca-
tions, fault current may become below the OCPD rating. Therefore,
faults may remain in the PV system without being cleared and become
a problem to system efficiency, reliability and safety. Therefore, there
is an urgent need of fault detection solutions to solve these problems.
• In Chapter 3, line-line fault inside PV arrays has been studied in
simulation and experimental platforms.
– Since a PV array usually consists of a number of PV modules that are
electrically connected, the PV array can be severely affected by ground
faults or line-line faults among PV modules. If one PV module is under
a fault, the whole system may be significantly impacted and could have
reduced efficiency, degraded lifetime and safety hazards. This means

that the PV system is only as robust as its weakest link (e.g., the
faulted PV components).
– Chapter 3 focuses on line-line faults, which are defined as an accidental
short-circuiting between two points in the array with different poten-
tials. Also, a line-line fault can be caused by a double-ground fault in
PV arrays. A simulation platform has been built for this chapter that
is capable of creating different fault scenarios inside PV arrays. It is
shown that the fault current is greatly dependent on the interconnec-
tion of PV modules, fault location, solar irradiance level, and maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) of PV inverters. The fault scenarios have
been analyzed and explained using current vs. voltage (I-V ) curve anal-
ysis, showing that under certain circumstances, the fault current may
be so small that OCPD fails in fault protection. Therefore, the fault
may be hidden in the PV array without being noticed, until the whole
PV system fails. This could lead to previously reported fire hazards,
property damage, and associated safety issues.
– The PV dynamic conductance is introduced in this chapter, which can
explain the PV dynamic behavior under the small voltage perturbation
by the MPPT. In addition, the transient behavior and MPPT effects
on the PV array are discussed. It is shown that under the fault, if the
MPPT is still working, MPPT tends to limit the faulted string current
so that is becomes difficult for OCPD to clear the fault.

– To prove the simulation results, line-line fault experiments are imple-
mented in a commercial grid-connected PV system of 35kW rated out-
put power. The experimental results verify the simulation results and
show that line-line faults with small mismatch may not be detected or
cleared successfully by conventional solutions (i.e., OCPD). Therefore,
the line-line fault may remain uninterrupted in the PV system until the
whole system fails. On the other hand, the experimental results also
show that if the line-line fault involves large location mismatch, the
OCPD has a better chance to clear the fault.
• In Chapter 4, outlier detection rules (ODR) are proposed in solar
PV string monitoring systems that are able to detect the unnoti-
cable faults by OCPD.
– Compared with normal strings, the faulted string usually has a reduced
output current. Therefore, PV string current and its rate of change can
be used as features for fault detection. They are relatively convenient
to measure and process. Based on these two features, two approaches–
statistical ODR and local outlier factor (LOF )–are proposed separately
to eliminate the protection gap of OCPD.
– The first method presented is called statistical outlier detection rule
(ODR) which includes the 3σ rule, the Hampel identifier and the Box-
plot outlier rules. Basically, these rules are quantitative methods to

define the boundaries of normal instances. For example, if a measure-
ment lies outside of the boundaries, it will be identified as an outlier
(e.g., fault). The second approach uses a spatial proximity-based local
outlier factor (LOF ) for fault detection. The main difference between
the statistical ODR and LOF is that LOF is a scoring technique that
assigns an outlier score to each instance or sample. Therefore, it gives
users the freedom to choose the outlying threshold. The methods are
applied to fault detection in PV arrays.
– The effectiveness of fault detection is verified on the experimental re-
sults in the 35kW PV laboratory under various solar irradiance condi-
tion. The proposed statistical ODR’s (e.g., the Hampel identifier and
the Boxplot outlier rules) are applied on the PV data of line-line faults
with 1 or 2 modules at fault, which cannot be cleared by conventional
OCPD. The experimental results have shown that both the Hampel
identifier and the Boxplot outlier rule can identify the fault successfully
after fault occurs. However, if the majority of the measurements are
close to each other, the statistical ODR may become aggressive and
could cause false alarms. To solve this problem, LOF is used for fault
detection, which shows improved performance. Also, the comparison of
statistical ODR and LOF and their advantages and disadvantages are
presented. The proposed methods are more responsive than traditional
methods, and it is suitable for real-time operation. Unlike the existing

solutions, the proposed methods do not require weather information,
but only rely on the current measurement on each PV string.
• In Chapter 5, graph-based semi-supervised learning (GBSSL) method
is proposed for fault classification in solar PV arrays.
– In addition to fault detection, this dissertation proposes fault classifica-
tion as another useful feature to indicate the fault type and further help
expedite the system recovery from fault. The limitations of traditional
methods, such as supervised learning methods, have been discussed. For
example, the trained supervised learning model may fail when weather
conditions of the PV array keep changing. Furthermore, labeled fault
data in solar PV arrays might be difficult and costly to obtain.
– Chapter 5 has shown that the I-V output characteristics of a PV array
can widely change as temperature and solar irradiance vary. As a result,
it is possible that the faulted PV array has similar and even overlap-
ping operating points as the normal PV array, making fault detection
difficult. To solve this issue, two new parameters are first introduced,
namely the normalized PV voltage and the normalized PV current.
Taking weather information and PV array configurations into consider-
ation, the new parameters tend to remain constant for each condition.
That is PV data with same condition tend to cluster together. Thus,
the proposed new parameters can improve PV data visualization and
show better data clustering.

– For the first time, GBSSL is proposed for fault detection and classi-
fication (FDC) in solar PV arrays. The proposed GBSSL is a semi-
supervised learning algorithm, which exhibits self-learning ability and
lower model training cost. It only uses a few labeled PV data and makes
good use of a large amount of unlabeled PV data that can be easily
obtained during PV system’s operation. By spreading the label infor-
mation from labeled data to unlabeled data (e.g., new measurements),
fault classification can be achieved. Also, the proposed method is uti-
lizing readily available PV measurements in PV systems (i.e., MPPT
voltage and current, and weather information) so that it saves the hard-
ware upgrades and related labor costs. Besides, the proposed method
can work with most any PV inverter topology that exists in the solar
market.
– The fault detection methods are able to detect open faults and danger-
ous line-line faults, which may not be detected by most known methods.
The effectiveness of the proposed GBSSL model is validated in both a
simulation platform and a small-scale PV experimental system under
real working conditions.

Centralized Inverter
GFDI With MPPT
Isys
String 1 String 2 + String n-1 String n Utility
grid
OCPD
I1 I2 In-1 In Gsys
Module 1
Module 2
Vsys
PV module
Module m-1
OCPD (fuses)
Module m
Figure 6.1: Schematic diagram of a grid-connected PV system, including

conventional GFDI and OCPD.
6.2 Future Work
As shown in Fig. 6.1, conventional fault detection and protection methods use
overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) and ground fault detection interrupters
(GFDI) in solar PV arrays. However, this dissertation has shown that OCPD may
fail in fault protection when the fault current is not high enough. This is caused
by the irradiance-dependent and current-limit feature of PV arrays. Since OCPD
(e.g., fuses or circuit breakers) are passive components that can only be blown or
tripped at certain current/energy level, their limitations can be found in the solar
PV arrays, leaving faults unnoticed or uncleared.
In this dissertation, we have proposed several decision-making algorithms to detect

and identify faults using different techniques, such as outlier detection rules or
graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithms. Their performance has been
validated in both simulation and experimental platforms, making them a promising
choice for fault detection and classification.
To continue this research, future work may explore new active fault protection
solutions, such as how to clear the fault actively, responsively and safely. Based
on the tripping signal generated from the proposed methods, the active fault pro-
tection solution should increase the system efficiency, reliability, safety and fault
immunity. Therefore, an integration of active fault protection approaches with the
proposed methods would be a nice future research topic.
As the PV penetration level becomes more widespread, PV inverters take more
and more responsibilities, not only in power conversions and maximum power
point tracking, but also in fault detection and protection. As the most intelligent
component in the PV system, PV inverters have the potential to provide more
safety features. For example, recent PV inverters are featured with several different
fault detection solutions, such as ground fault detection, dc-arc fault detection,
insulation detection in ungrounded PV arrays, and residual current detection.
However, the existing fault detection solutions of PV inverters are usually based
on signal-processing, merely relying on the instantaneous measurement. For this
reason, fault classification is still not available for PV inverters. To make good use
of readily available historical data, future research may be focused on how to inte-
grate the proposed fault classification methods into the PV inverters. This would
provide better fault detection features and potentially increase the PV system
reliability and safety.

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List of Publications
The following list includes all the papers published by the author during his grad-
uate studies. Papers designated by “?” are directly related with research results
presented in this dissertation.
Journal Papers
[J3] ? Y. Zhao, R. Ball, J. Mosesian, J.F. de Palma and B. Lehman,
“Graph-based Semi-supervised Learning for Fault Detection and Classification in
Solar Photovoltaic Arrays,” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol.30, no.5,
pp.2848-2858, May 2015.
[J2] G. Spagnuolo, G. Petrone, B. Lehman, C.A. Ramos Paja, Y. Zhao,
M. L. Orozco Gutierrez, “Control of Photovoltaic Arrays: Dynamical Reconfigu-
ration for Fighting Mismatched Conditions and Meeting Load Requests,” IEEE
Industrial Electronics Magazine, vol.9, no.1, pp.62-76, March 2015.
156
[J1] ? Y. Zhao, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, R. Lyons and B. Lehman,
“Line–Line Fault Analysis and Protection Challenges in Solar Photovoltaic Ar-
rays,” IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol.60, no.9, pp.3784-3795,
Sept. 2013.
Conference Papers
[C13] ? Y. Zhao, F. Balboni, T. Arnaud, J. Mosesian, R. Ball, and B.
Lehman, “Fault experiments in a commercial-scale PV laboratory and fault detec-
tion using local outlier factor,” 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference
(PVSC), pp.3398-3403, June 8-13, 2014.
[C12] J.H. Huang, Y. Zhao, and B. Lehman, “Fast reconfigurable photo-
voltaic switching cell integrated within DC-DC converters,” 2014 Twenty-Ninth
Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC),
pp.629-636, March 16-20, 2014.
[C11] ? Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, R. Ball, J.F. de Palma, “Graph-based semi-
supervised learning for fault detection and classification in solar photovoltaic ar-
rays,” 2013 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE), pp.1628,1634,
Sept. 15-19, 2013.

[C10] J.H. Huang, Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, and D. Nguyen, “Fast switching
reconfigurable photovoltaic modules integrated within DC-DC converters,” 2013
IEEE 14th Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL),
pp.1-7, June 23-26, 2013.
[C9] ? Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, R. Ball, J. Mosesian and J.F. de Palma,
”Outlier detection rules for fault detection in solar photovoltaic arrays,” 2013
Twenty-Eighth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposi-
tion (APEC), pp.2913-2920, March 17-21, 2013.
[C8] Y. Zhao, L. Yang, and B. Lehman, “Reconfigurable solar photovoltaic
battery charger using a switch matrix,” 2012 IEEE 34th International Telecom-
munications Energy Conference (INTELEC), pp.1-7, Sept. 30, 2012-Oct. 4, 2012.
[C7] Y. Zhao, L. Yang, B. Lehman, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, and R.
Lyons, ”Decision tree-based fault detection and classification in solar photovoltaic
arrays,” 2012 Twenty-Seventh Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference
and Exposition (APEC), pp.93-99, Feb. 5-9, 2012.
[C6] ? Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, and R. Lyons,
“Challenges to overcurrent protection devices under line-line faults in solar photo-
voltaic arrays,” 2011 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE),
pp.20-27, Sept. 17-22, 2011.
[C5] ? Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, and R. Lyons,
“Challenges of overcurrent protection devices in photovoltaic arrays brought by

maximum power point tracker,” 2011 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Confer-
ence (PVSC), pp.2472-2477, June 19-24, 2011.
[C4] Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, and R. Lyons, “Fault
analysis in solar PV arrays under: Low irradiance conditions and reverse con-
nections,” 2011 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC), pp.2000-
2005, June 19-24, 2011.
[C3] R. M. Nakagomi, Y. Zhao, and B. Lehman, “Multi-level converters
for three-phase photovoltaic applications,” 2010 IEEE 12th Workshop on Control
and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL), pp.1-6, June 28-30, 2010.
[C2] Y. Zhao, B. Lehman, J.F. de Palma, J. Mosesian, and R. Lyons, “Fault
evolution in photovoltaic array during night-to-day transition,” 2010 IEEE 12th
Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics (COMPEL), pp.1-6,
June 28-30, 2010.
[C1] X. He, M. O. Pun, C.-C.J. Kuo and Y. Zhao, “A Change-Point De-
tection Approach to Power Quality Monitoring in Smart Grids,” 2010 IEEE In-
ternational Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC), pp.1-5, May 23-27,
2010.
Filed Patent
[P1] Y. Zhao, P. Li, B. Lehman and G. de Palma, “Photovoltaic string
monitor,” US Patent App. 13/541,105, Jul. 2012.

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FAULT DETECTION, CLASSIFICATION AND

PROTECTION IN SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAYS

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

constant encouragement during my doctoral journey. His knowledge, creativity

Li who examine my dissertation and provide me so many valuable suggestions.

Jean-François de Palma, Roy Ball, Jerry Mosesian, Ed Knapp, Craig McKenzie

kind support during my internship in Annecy Le Vieux, France. Special thanks

go to Florent Balboni who offered me great support on the solar photovoltaic

experiments in this dissertation.

I am very fortunate to meet great friends during my graduate studies in Boston.

numerous memorable moments in my life.

Finally, I am grateful to all my family members, especially my wife, Ling Yang,

in-law, Zhongqing Yang for always believing in me and encouraging me to do my

strength and determination to make my dreams come true.

List of Figures vii

2.3.3.4 Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) . . . . . . . . 34

3 Fault Studies in a Commercial-Scale PV Laboratory 42

4 Fault Detection Using Outlier Detection Rules 70

5 Fault Classification Using Machine-Learning Algorithms 92

6 Conclusions and Future Work 131

List of Publications 156

1.1 Fire hazards in PV installations caused by faults. . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1 Common faults in PV arrays (dc side). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.21 Fault detection in PV arrays using Infrared (IR) thermography. . . 37

3.1 Line-line faults in a PV array with a centralized PV inverter. . . . . 45

4.1 Univariate normal distribution of PV string currents {xi }. . . . . . 75

5.1 Limitation of supervised learning: SVM model trained in summer

6.1 Schematic diagram of a grid-connected PV system, including con-

2.1 Maximum allowable ground current detection settings [15]. . . . . . 14

3.1 Simulation results of various line-line faults at String #1 under STC 54

4.1 A brief comparison between the statistical ODR and LOF in PV

5.1 Summary results of fault detection and classification . . . . . . . . . 121

AFCI Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter

ANN Artificial Neural Network

BNN Bayesian Neural Network

DWT Discrete Wavelet Transform

FDC Fault Detection and Classification

FFT Fast Fourier Transform

GBSSL Graph-Based Semi-Supervised Learning

GFDI Ground Fault Detection Interrupter

GUI Graphical User Interface

I-V Current vs. Voltage

LOF Local Outlier Factor

MPP Maximum Power Point

MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking

NEC National Electrical Code

OCPD Overcurrent Protection Device

ODR Outlier Detection Rule

RCD Residual Current Detector

SSL Semi-Supervised Learning

SSTDR Spread Spectrum Time Domain Reflectometry

STC Standard Test Ccondition

SVM Support Vector Machine

TDR Time Domain Reflectometry

sunlight in daytime. Furthermore, conventional series-parallel PV configurations

scale PV laboratory is designed to study faults under real-working conditions and

to discover the “blind spots” in conventional fault protection schemes. It is shown

PV system as a safety concern.

drawbacks of supervised learning algorithms, a semi-supervised learning algorithm

is proposed. The dissertation demonstrates the effectiveness in fault detection and

classification in both simulation and experimental results.

1.1 Motivation and Background