2019 8th International Conference on Modern Power Systems (MPS)
Monitoring Solar Panels using Machine Learning
Techniques
Department of Electrical Engineering
"Gheorghe Asachi" Technical University of Iaşi
Iaşi, Romania
cghaba@tuiasi.ro
Abstract— Increasing photovoltaic (PV) park installations, in
conjunction with the development of wind farms and other
renewable energy systems, is a safe way to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions that are accused of having led to significant climate
change in recent years. Photovoltaic cells must operate in open
space in order to capture solar radiation with the disadvantage of
being continuously exposed to meteorological phenomena. The
effects of some of these phenomena can lead to degradation of
photovoltaic panel efficiency or operation. In this paper we
propose a method of monitoring photovoltaic panels for the
identification of possible degradation of operation based on
machine learning (ML) techniques. The development of the
model and its validation is based on data collected both from the
panels' photovoltaic control system and weather data collected
from Internet.
Keywords—photovoltaic systems; downgraded
detection; machine learning; binary classification
I. INTRODUCTION
Recent years have shown a significant increase in interest
in the installation of renewable energy systems, some of which
aim to replace systems using older technologies and considered
less environmentally friendly.
Systems based on photovoltaic panels are becoming more
and more interesting as technology development has succeeded
in further increasing their conversion efficiency.
a) b) c)
Fig. 1. Solar panel a) clean, covered with b) sand and, c) mud.
978-1-7281-0750-9/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
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Cristian-Győző Haba
Compared to other systems used for generation of
electricity, solar panels are designed to operate in outside
environments, thus being exposed to weather phenomena
ranging from moderate to the most extreme. The result of such
exposure can be the panel damaging or in a better case, a
reduction in the efficiency of the panel.
Some of the situations that result in reduced operation or
efficiency of the solar panels are due to interposition of matter
between the solar cells and solar rays coming from sun. Fig. 1
presents the cases where solar panels operation is affected by
sand and mud respectively.
Restoring good condition for panel operation implies a
maintenance procedure aiming to remove the obstructing
matter. Some systems were considered to be added to the solar
operation panels in order to perform the cleaning operation. In [1] a high
pressure pump system is used to create air jets to remove
impurities, while [2] presents a solution using a transparent
electrodynamic screen.
The sooner the downgraded operation is detected, the
sooner the maintenance procedures can be put in place.
Such situation can be easily identified by doing a visual
inspection of the solar panel. If we are talking about large solar
panel parks, that are located in a far and not easy reaching area,
this visual inspection is less easy to perform. Using the
information local to the photovoltaic park, or better, from each
solar panel, the identification of downgraded condition can be
done more quickly, more efficiently and automatically.
In order to implement such functionality, we propose the
development of a system that integrates information flows that
can be used both to monitor the operation of the systems within
the photovoltaic park as well as to the proper functioning and
integrity of the system.
An important factor in achieving a high efficiency of
conversion of solar energy into electrical energy is to conserve
the solar panel's optical properties over its operation period.
This takes into account preserving both the glass protective
layer characteristics and those in the space between the solar
radiation source and the surface of the panel. In [3] is presented
a study that takes into account the effects that the marine
environment can have on the optical characteristics of solar
panels. Due to air, water and impurities of marine origin, the
protective glass can deteriorate, change colour or degrade,
resulting in reduced solar cell conversion efficiency.
 a)
Fig. 2. Solar panels covered with snow a) 100%, b) ≈50% and, c) ≈33%.
Applying machine learning techniques is widespread in
applications that target photovoltaic systems. A technique for
modelling PV panels based on feed-forward neural network in
presented in [4]. In [5] is presented a study which is using
Gaussian process to determine panel maximum power point
(MPP) as a result of the variation of the environmental
parameters. Using neuronal network based (ANN) algorithms,
in [6] the Daily Mean Solar Power is predicted and the method
is compared to the results obtained using standard regression
algorithms. The results show that the ANN perform
considerably better than standard regression ones. A special
case is described in [7] where solar panels are used to power a
racing car and where machine learning techniques are used to
predict solar irradiance that will be used to select the best
strategy for powering and controlling the car for winning the
race.
The identification of patterns of solar energy utilization for
a better planning of consumption in the distribution system can
be done as shown in [8]. This study is different from other
studies, as it is considering photovoltaic systems for domestic
use, located in isolated areas and not part of photovoltaic parks.
The machine learning algorithms used in the method are based
on clustering, looking to identify the number and types of
appliances used in house for a certain period of time. The study
shows that identifying the users’ profiles using these machine
learning techniques can help distribution companies to make
probabilistic load forecast in order to increase the efficiency of
their activity.
The machine learning-based identification methods
presented in [9] attempt to classify the events that may occur in
the distribution networks to which photovoltaic systems are
connected and whose behaviour can affect the stability and
controllability of the system. Quick identification of these
events allows network operators to adopt strategies that are
most suited for this kind of situations.
The realization of predictions regarding the energy
converted by the solar panels, taking into account the
atmospheric conditions (degree of cloudiness) is presented in
[10]. In order to do the predictions, in addition to panel
conversion history, sky pictures taken from above the panel are
used. The pictures are processed and analyzed to determine the
various weather conditions. In order to achieve the predictor
model, convolutional neural networks are used and the study
shows that both the conversion history and the information
extracted from the images are important for the short-term
prediction of the solar panel output.
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b) c)
A use case of machine learning to detect degraded solar
panels due to breaks in panels, due to snow or weeds is
presented in [11]. The model is trained with the "tensor flow"
technique using current and voltage data taken from the
measuring points of the series strings (solar panels connected in
series) and at the junction points of several such strings.
A study presented in [12] shows that the state of solar
panels (clean or dusty) in a photovoltaic park can be
determined with a given confidence interval by using statistical
methods and Maximum Power data taken from a single solar
panel within the park. Another study [13] tries to identify
defective panels by using binary classification based on texture
feature extraction from thermography images of panels. The
method achieved high model accuracy of more than 98 % and
proved high precision and sensitivity values for a large set of
configuration. A different case is the one presented in [14]
which refers to Solar-Powered Wireless Mesh Networks which
attempts to detect malfunctions and diagnose panels that make
up the mesh networks. For this purpose, the Knowledge
Discovery in Databases (KDD) methodology was used. The
problem being defined as a classification, several classification
methods were tested such as Naive Bayes, Support Vector
Machine (SVM), Decision Table, k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN)
and C4.5, resulting that C4.5 and SVM algorithms are the best
for predictions.
II. DESCRIPTION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM
The monitoring method described in the present paper is
developed using the ENERED photovoltaic platform created as
part of the European founded ENERED project [15]. The
platform was installed near the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering in Iasi which was partner in the European project.
The platform consists of three rows of solar panels totaling a
number of 9 PV panels. The rows have 3 panels each, the
distinction between the panels in different rows being the type
of sun tracking system the panel is mounted on.
There are three different mounting systems, the first one,
for the panels in the first row being a fixed system, which has
no possibility of sun tracking. The second row includes solar
panels that are mounted on a DEGER TOPtracker® - Single-
axis tracking system [16] allowing a -45º ÷45º rotation angle.
The panels in the third row are mounted on DEGERtraker
5000NT dual axis tracking systems [17] allowing a 300º
rotation angle. The elevation angle for the fixed and the single
axis tracking system panels is in the range 15º ÷30º while for

Cloud
Services
Gateway
Local
Server
Sensors
Solar PV Inverter
Platform
Energy
storage
Fig.3. Grid connected photovoltaic system with monitoring and analyzing system.
the dual axis tracking system panels, the elevation is in the
range 20º ÷90º.
The solar panel conversion is controlled using OutBack
Power inverters and charge controllers which also provide
protection and continuous monitoring of the system. The
electrical energy, if not sent to the grid, can be stored in a bank
of 14 12V- batteries.
The ENERED platform includes five inverters that control
energy conversion as follows:
• fixed panels are connected to one conversion system;
• single axis tracking system panels are connected to one
conversion system;
• each dual axis tracking system panel is connected to one
conversion system.
Conversion data monitoring, the display and modification
of control and inverter settings can be achieved using a MATE
device [18]. The communication with the conversion system is
done using a communication and system management HUB.
Different data can be monitored and displayed on the
MATE device:
• system status (generating, inverting, charging)
• battery status (charged, charging, minimum and
maximum battery voltage values and values of different
parameters from inverters, charge controllers and
battery
Via the communication and system management HUB,
monitoring is also accessible in a local network and can be
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Weather
stations
Internet
Weather
stations
Weather
Stations
Gateway
Power Distribution Local
Network loads
Electricity
Utility
displayed on a web site organized in the following sections:
Status, Mode, Meters, Setup, System, Firmware.
An application running on a local server was developed in
order to read data continuously from the MATE system. The
frequency of reading is 1 data read per second, but this can be
easily adjusted to obtain a lower frequency. More than 35
parameters are read from MATE device which are saved in
files, in csv (Comma Separated Values) format. There is one
file with data from each inverter, each file containing data for
approximate one day period (1440 rows). The files are saved in
folder with a name that identifies the day when data were
recorded.
The system architecture is given in Fig. 3. The system is
connected to sensors mounted on the photovoltaic panels or
other elements from the photovoltaic park, to weather stations
located in within the solar PV park or in the nearby region and
to cloud services that provide data to be used in the prediction
algorithm, for data storing, integration, process and display.
Fig. 4 shows an aerial view of the ENERED PV platform
where the three rows with different types of panels are
identified.
In [15] is presented a use case where data collected from
the PV platform is sent to cloud services in order to be
processed and to be displayed using a dashboard for
monitoring purposes.
III. METHODOLOGY
A modular ML pipeline shown in Fig. 5 was developed for
monitoring and classification of solar PV status by using data
acquired from different sources.
 nearer the solar PV platform, in our case, the IAII19.
Unfortunately this weather station doesn't record solar
radiation. Therefore, data for solar radiation is collected from
station IISVLADI2 which does these recordings and has the
same measurement frequency as the IAII19 station.
The third data source consists of a sunrise and sunset
calculator that can provide the sunrise and sunset times for a
specific location and for a specific day which is available at
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/.

Fig. 4. Aerial view of the ENERED photovoltaic platform with fixed, single
axis tracking and dual axis tracking system panels.

Data Data Data

source 1 source 2 source 3

Preprocess
data

Model
training

Evaluation Fig. 6. Location of weather stations with respect to the PV platfrom.

Prediction TABLE I. CHARACTERISTICS OF WEATHER STATIONS IN THE PV

PLATFROM REGION
Weather Stations IIAI19 IIAI20 IISVLADI2
Fig. 5. ML pipeline for classification of solar PV status. Characteristics
Measurement of Temperature, Yes Yes Yes
Humidity, Dew Point,
The pipeline contains the usual blocks used in ML systems, Precipitation, Pressure
this modularity having the advantage of being easily reused if Measurement of Wind Direction, Yes Yes Yes
new data sources are used or integrated with the initial ones. Speed and Gust
Measurement of Solar Radiation No No Yes
A. Dataset Measurement period (min) 5 15 5
Distance from PV platform (km) 1.64 2.82 4.55
In this work we relied on data coming from three sources. Weather History in Graphs and Yes Yes Yes
First source consists of data recorded from the solar PV Tables
platform presented in section II. As a second source we relied
on data coming from the weather stations in the Weather B. Preprocessing
Underground network located in the region of the PV platform A preprocessing step was performed in order to reduce the
(https://www.wunderground.com/weather/ro/iasi). The three size of the data set and to improve the reliability of the
closest to the platform are IAII19, IAII20 and IISVLADI2 recorded data. The preprocessing was used to eliminate
which are depicted in Fig 6. irrelevant time frames and measurement noise.
Data provided by the weather station included temperature,
C. Binary classification for prediction
humidity, precipitation level, solar radiation and pressure. The
characteristics of the collected data differ from station to In order to perform the training step, the data set was
station, as presented in Table I. Not all needed data can be divided in two classes, namely “covered” and “not covered”.
collected from a single station therefore, data was merged from For this purpose solar PV panels were observed during
stations IAII19 and IAAII20. More precisely, data regarding December 2018 and January 2019 and their status was
precipitation level is more relevant if the weather station is recorded. Fig. 7 depicts the variation of several parameters

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recorded from one of the MATE device associated with the
ENERED solar PV platform. During the observation period
there were days when the panels were covered with snow and
days when the panels were clean. From the recorded data were
selected data points from both categories. The points were
selected from both categories so that it included 171 points for
each category.
The initial data set was split in two subsets to be used for
training and validation step respectively. Different split
percentages were tested in order to see which one gives the best
result.
For the training, the logistic regression classifier model was
selected and linear and lbfgs solvers were used.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A dataset of size 342 was used for training and validation
of the model that could predict reduced operation status of
solar panels due to snow coverage. The model was trained
using different percentage values for splitting the initial set into
training and test sets. The results are given in Table II.

TABLE II. VARIATION OF SCORE WITH TRANING AND TEST SET SIZE
Train Test Score
# % # % lbfgs liblinear
307 90 35 10 0.918 0.902
290 85 52 15 0.914 0.893
273 80 69 20 0.916 0.897
256 75 86 25 0.911 0.906
239 70 103 30 0.920 0.879

From the recorded parameters, we have tested different sets

to be considered as features in the ML method. In this sets we
have included only instantaneous values read from the PV
system or a set of instantaneous values and the solar radiation
read from the weather station. The results from these tests are
given in Table III.

TABLE III. VARIATION OF SCORE WITH FEATURE SET

Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Score
Fig. 7. Solar panel parameters variation for a 7 day period. Channel B Current PV Voltage Solar 0.916
Radiation
Channel A Current Channel B Current Solar 0.846
D. Feature selection Radiation
Data from MATE devices consists of 39 parameters. These Channel A Current Channel B Current PV Voltage 0.927
Panel Output Current Charged Energy Solar 0.831
can be classified in the following categories: time stamp data Radiation
(like time and date of measurement), instantaneous values Panel Output Voltage Battery Voltage Solar 0.890
(generated current, voltage, power), accumulated values Radiation
(accumulated amperage or accumulated kilowatt-hours), Inverter Input Inverter Output Solar 0.857
system status attributes (ex. Charging, Inverting, Silent). In Voltage Voltage Radiation
addition, information from cloud services such as time of PV Voltage Panel Output Current Solar 0.838
Radiation
sunrise and sunset, temperature, pressure, solar radiation,
amount of precipitation can be added to PV system data. A
good selection of parameters to be used in creating and training The analysis of the results in Table III shows the
the prediction model is an important part of the machine importance of selecting a good set of features. Good results are
learning process. obtained both when the set includes only instantaneous values
read from the PV system and when it includes both a set of
In our study we have tested different set of parameters to be instantaneous values and the solar radiation read from the
considered as features in the ML model and the classification weather station.
variable named “covered” as the target.
A candidate for a good feature would be the information
coming from the weather stations regarding the precipitation.
E. Training and Validation
Information from the considered weather stations is an
Training and validation of the model was performed using accumulated value which is reset at the end of each day.
Python and machine learning algorithms implemented in the Therefore, though the precipitation (snow) has an accumulated
sklearn library [19]. The development environment used to value of, for example, 3 cm in a day, at the beginning of the
code the ML algorithm was the Python Notebook.

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next day the level will be zero (though the accumulated snow
didn't suddenly melt away at the midnight).
The main purpose of this research was make the initial
development of the method for monitoring PV for the
identification of possible degradation of operation based on
machine learning (ML) techniques. The results are affected by
the fact that for the moment the PV park is not working in an
operational mode closer to a more real situation. At present, the
load is small and connected only during the night. The PV
park, though having the capability, is not connected to the grid.
A new set of tests are designed in order to validate the method
with the park operating closer to a real situation.
V. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK
This work presented a proposal for a machine learning
method for monitoring and identifying the situation when solar
panels in a PV platform are in a reduced operation status due to
coverage of solar panels with snow, sand, mud or other optical
obstructing materials. Early identification of these situations
can trigger rapid maintenance activities to bring the operation
parameters to the normal values.
Though the tests and results are presented for the case when
solar panels are covered with snow, the method can be
extended to be used in the other cases. Additional studies will
seek to test other combinations of electrical and weather
parameters to be used as features in the ML method.
As these special conditions of reduced operation status can
occur only in certain periods of the year (ex. snowfalls are
restricted to the winter season) or in certain geographical
regions (sand storms specific to regions in proximity of
deserts), methods to simulate these situations will be studied in
order to improve the quality of prediction model.
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