IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 8, NO.
1, JANUARY 2018
Online Fault Detection and Diagnosis in Photovoltaic
Systems Using Wavelet Packets
B. Pradeep Kumar, Student Member, IEEE, G. Saravana Ilango , Senior Member, IEEE,
M. Jaya Bharata Reddy, Senior Member, IEEE, and Nagamani Chilakapati , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The nonlinear characteristics of a photovoltaic (PV)
array, maximum power point tracking of the PV inverter, presence
of blocking diodes, and lower irradiation prevent the conventional
protection devices to trip under certain faults and lead to reduced
system efficiency and fire hazards. Moreover, the PV character-
istics under certain partial shading conditions are similar to that
under fault conditions. Hence, it is imperative to detect faults and
differentiate faults from the partial shading condition to avoid false
tripping of the system. This paper proposes a simple fault detection
method using the available data of array voltage and current by
means of wavelet packets. The proposed scheme is simulated us-
ing MATLAB/Simulink and is experimentally tested on a 1.6-kW
4 × 4 PV array to validate its performance.
Index Terms—Faults, partial shading, photovoltaic (PV) system,
wavelet packet transform (WPT).
I. INTRODUCTION
NCREASED concern on environmental pollution and reduc-
I tion in fossil fuels have motivated the search for alternative
energy sources that have a lower footprint on the environment.
Among these renewable alternatives, solar energy is freely avail-
able in unlimited quantities and does not require any moving
parts for conversion to electrical energy. Furthermore, the total
installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity has increased due to the
reduction in PV modules’ price and attractive government sub-
sidies. According to global status report 2015, the overall PV
installed capacity is 227 GW [1]. With such a huge capacity,
it is necessary to have a reliable protection system in order to
improve system safety, reliability, and efficiency. According to
the location of fault or failure in a PV system, it can be classified
as in [2]: anomalies in the utility grid, failure within power con-
ditioning unit, and faults on PV arrays. The latter of these faults
is focused in this paper, i.e., PV array faults, namely, line-to-
ground (LG) faults, line–line (LL) faults, mismatch faults, and
arc faults. Among these, LL and LG faults involve large fault
Manuscript received July 14, 2017; revised September 26, 2017; accepted Oc-
tober 25, 2017. Date of publication December 4, 2017; date of current version
December 20, 2017. This work was supported by the Ministry of Electronics
and Information Technology, Government of India. This research was performed
at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India, funded through
Young Faculty Research Fellowship under the DeitY Visvesvaraya Ph.D.
scheme. (Corresponding author: G. Saravana Ilango.)
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineer-
ing, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, India (e-mail:
pradeep301327@gmail.com; gsilango@nitt.edu; jbreddy@nitt.edu; cnmani@
nitt.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2017.2770159
2156-3381 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
257
currents. Unless these faults are cleared by appropriate protec-
tion devices, they may cause fire hazards and reduce the power
output and system efficiency [3], [4].
The conventional protection system for PV arrays consists of
overcurrent protection devices (OCPD) and a ground fault pro-
tection device (GFPD) [5]. However, certain PV array faults are
not cleared by these protection devices, since the magnitude of
fault current is less than the minimum breaking capacity of the
fuse, which is usually 2.1 times of the short-circuit current [6].
The factors that mainly influence the magnitude of fault current
are the presence of blocking diodes, irradiation level, maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) of the inverter, fault location, po-
tential difference between the two faulted ends, fault impedance,
and degradation [2]. Furthermore, under certain partial shading
conditions, the P–V characteristics may be similar to that under
a fault [7]. Hence, it is imperative to differentiate the partial
shading from the fault condition to avoid the malfunctioning of
the protection system.
Many fault detection methods projected in the past can be
categorized into three groups namely, performance comparison,
signal processing, and machine learning techniques [8]. The first
group identifies the faults based on the performance compari-
son of PV systems. Platon et al. [9] presented a fault detection
algorithm (FDA) based on the power loss between the mea-
sured and predicted ac power. For better accuracy, it requires
multiple models for various ranges of irradiation. In [10], if the
power loss is more than a threshold value, a reconfiguration
technique is used to identify and bypass the defective module.
However, it requires a massive number of switches for a large
PV system, which makes the protection system uneconomical.
These comparison-based methods may not be effective due to
the following reasons.
1) Actual and simulated PV modules may not be the same.
2) False tripping due to similarity between the low percent-
age mismatch faults, low irradiation, and partial shading
conditions.
3) Model needs to be updated regularly, since PV parameters
change with respect to seasonal conditions.
The second group identified and localized the faults based on
the response of the reflected signal (signal-processing-based so-
lutions). Time-domain reflectometry, which is an offline method
used to detect and locate the open-circuit and short-circuit faults
and degradation (increase in the series resistance) using the time-
domain characteristics of the reflected voltage waveform [12],
[13]. Without disconnecting the inverter, using spread spectrum
258
Fig. 1. Block diagram of a typical PV system.
time-domain reflectometry, an LG fault is detected by correlat-
ing the peaks of the generated and reflected waveforms [14].
Both methods require a function generator, and the frequency
of the transmitted signal can be affected by the presence of long
dc cables, a line frequency transformer, and grounding of the
system.
The third group detects the faults by using machine learning
techniques, and these methods use the input data as output PV
array voltage (VPV ), PV array current (IPV ), irradiance, and
temperature. Akram and Lotfifard [15] presented a method to
identify and classify the LL and open-circuit faults, using an
intelligent method called probabilistic neural network, in which
a new temperature-dependent PV module model is proposed to
validate the method. In [16], a decision-tree-based algorithm is
proposed to detect and classify the faults. In this, less than 20%
mismatch faults are wrongly classified as the normal condition,
while the method also requires large training data. To overcome
the requirement of a large training data under fault conditions,
a graph-based semisupervised learning method is proposed in
[17]. In another method, the voltage across each module is es-
timated by using a three-layer neural network [18] to detect
and locate the short-circuit faults. The number of layers and
the complexity in the control law increase with the array size.
These learning methods require fault data, which are costly, and
these may not give accurate results, since the training data may
not cover all the possible anomalies under various environmen-
tal conditions. In addition, these reference modules may not
have the same environmental conditions as that of the working
conditions of the PV array.
Recently, Hariharan et al. [19] have proposed a method to
detect the PV array faults and partial shading by using the in-
stantaneous measurement of MPPT information (i.e., VPV and
IPV ) and the reference module for measurement of irradiation.
However, this method is not suitable for large-size PV plants,
where irradiance among the modules is different.
This paper proposes an online fault detection method based
on wavelet packet transforms (WPTs) using only the MPPT
information. The structure of this paper is described as fol-
lows. Section II describes a PV system and the effect of faults.
Section III presents an algorithm for the proposed method and a
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 8, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
strategy in deriving the threshold values. In Section IV, exper-
imental results are discussed to validate the proposed method.
Section V concludes this paper.
II. DESCRIPTION OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM AND EFFECT OF
PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAY FAULTS
A. Description of a Photovoltaic System
The proposed grid-connected PV system shown in Fig. 1
consists of a PV array, blocking diodes, bypass diodes, a dc–dc
converter with MPPT, a centralized inverter, protection devices
such as the GFPD and the OCPD, an analog voltage module
(NI 9225), an analog current module (NI 9227), and a personal
computer (PC). The protection device GFPD is used to protect
the array from the large ground fault current (Ig ) and is placed in
between the grounded current-carrying conductor and the sys-
tem grounding (shown in Fig. 1). When the current Ig passing
through the GFPD is more than the threshold value, it will dis-
connect the fault from the PV array. Another protection device
OCPD is used to protect the modules from the large fault cur-
rents. Moreover, to avoid electric shock to persons and to protect
the equipment from ground faults, all the noncurrent-carrying
metal parts such as mounting racks, module frames, and power
converter chassis are connected to the ground through the equip-
ment grounding connector [5] (shown with green-dotted lines
in Fig. 1).
Further in a PV array, modules are connected in series to build
the required output voltage, and such strings are connected in
parallel to obtain the desired output current. VPV and IPV are
measured at a sampling frequency of 1 KHz by using the analog
voltage module NI 9225 and the analog current module NI
9227, respectively, and their ratings are mentioned in Table I.
These two modules are placed in an eight-channel NI CDAQ
9178 mixed measurement test system, which acts as an interface
between the modules and the PC. Using LabVIEW software,
faults are investigated by applying WPTs.
Moreover, to excerpt the maximum power from the PV array,
an MPPT (P&O) is used in the dc–dc converter. The extracted
maximum power is fed to the ac grid through the Omniksol-
1.5k-TL inverter with dc input Pm ax = 1.75 kW.
KUMAR et al.: ONLINE FAULT DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS USING WAVELET PACKETS 259

TABLE I
RATINGS OF THE NI INSTRUMENTS USED FOR MEASURING
THE VOLTAGE AND CURRENT

Sensor Max. sampling Number of DC rating AC rating

frequency channels (rms)
(KHz)

NI 9227 50 4 14.1 A 5A
NI 9225 50 4 800 V 230 V

TABLE II
RATINGS OF NEX POWER NH-100 AT 100-W THIN-FILM PV MODULE

S.No Module parameter Module rating

1. Max. Power 100 W
2. Open-Circuit Voltage 50.5 V
3. Short Circuit Current 3.3 A
4. Voltage at Max. power 36.5 V
5. Current at Max. Power 2.73 A
B. Effects of Faults in Photovoltaic Arrays
Faults in a PV array are categorized as permanent faults and
temporary faults. LL, LG, open-circuit, and mismatch faults are
the permanent faults, due to which there is a permanent reduc-
tion in the output power. Among these, LL and LG faults are
considered in this paper, since these faults may generate huge
fault current, which can accelerate the degradation of the PV
modules and also lead to fire hazards. An LL or LG fault oc-
curs due to an accidental interconnection between two different
potential nodes or between one node of the PV array and the
ground, respectively. The LG fault and open-circuit faults are
special cases of the LL fault [2], [19], and the severity of an
LL fault depends upon the percentage mismatch. Therefore, the
ability to detect an LL fault implies that the LG or open-circuit
faults can also be detected by the protection system. Moreover,
the partial shading and sudden change in the irradiations are
temporary faults, because of which there is a degradation in the
output power for a short duration of time. The pictorial repre-
sentation of various faults is shown in Fig. 1.
A 4 × 4 solar PV array, with a maximum power of 1.6 kW,
is considered to investigate the faults in the PV array, and the
ratings of the PV module are listed in Table II. F1 in Fig. 1 refers
to an LL fault with single module mismatch or 25% mismatch
(out of four modules, one module is shorted) occurring between
strings 1 and 2, whereas F2, F3, and F4 refer to two-module
(50%), three-module (75%), and four-module (100% or total
string shorted) mismatch faults, respectively. Under standard
test conditions (STC), if an LL fault occurs, there is a signif-
icant reduction in VPV and a large back-feed current flows,
which is enough to melt the fuse (OCPD), so that fault may be
isolated from the healthy system. The magnitude of back-feed
current depends on the percentage of mismatch and irradia-
tion levels. However, under low irradiation (say 300 W/m2 ), an
LL fault with two-module mismatch (F2) is created in the ab-
sence of blocking diodes. From the I–V characteristics shown in
Fig. 2, at the instant of the fault, the back-feed current is –2.8 A,
Fig. 2. Without blocking diodes, I–V characteristics of the PV array.
which is less than the minimum breaking capacity of the fuse,
i.e., 6.93 A (= 2.1∗ ISC ). Hence, the fault remains hidden, due
to which fast aging of modules will occur, and also, there is a
disruption in the power supply. To prevent the back-feed cur-
rent and to improve the reliability of the PV system, blocking
diodes are connected in series with each string. However, the
presence of a blocking diode makes the fault undetectable, even
under STC. In addition to blocking diodes, bypass diodes are
connected in antiparallel with the PV module to avoid the for-
mation of hotspot under partial shading conditions. Under the
partial shading condition, the shaded PV module is bypassed
with the conduction of the bypass diode, and this condition is
similar to that under fault. Hence, to avoid maloperation of the
protection system, an efficient FDA is required.
III. PROPOSED ALGORITHM FOR FAULT DIAGNOSIS
Wavelets techniques are particularly suitable in analyzing the
transient characteristics of the faults or any other type of dis-
turbance that contains high-frequency components over a short
duration of time [11], [20]–[23]. Wavelet analysis is the splitting
up of a signal into scaled and shifted versions of the original (or
mother) wavelet. In continuous wavelet transforms, coefficients
are calculated by comparing the input signal with the scaled
and shifted versions of wavelets. However, the calculation of all
coefficients is time consuming. To overcome this, the discrete
wavelet transform (DWT) is used. In the DWT, low-pass and
high-pass filters are used to discriminate the low-frequency (ap-
proximations) and high-frequency components (details) present
in the signal, respectively [24]. Furthermore, in each level of
the DWT, only approximations are further divided into approx-
imations and details, whereas in the WPT, in each level along
with approximations, details are also decomposed into approx-
imations and details. Hence, the WPT provides more accurate
signal analysis when compared with wavelet transforms. More-
over, the Haar wavelet is used as a mother wavelet, and the
coefficients are calculated as sums and differences of the suc-
cessive elements [22], [25].
Vpv and Ipv are the only input data considered for analyzing
the faults in the PV array. With these input data, three features,
namely, change in the array voltage, energy of the array voltage,
260 IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 8, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018

Fig. 3. Extraction of features for the FDA.

Fig. 4. Extraction of wavelet packet coefficients V w p c (i) and Z w p c (i). Fig. 5. Flowchart for the proposed method to identify the faults.
TABLE III
and energy for the change in the impedance are extracted (shown THRESHOLD VALUES FOR THE ΔV, E av , AND E Im p
in Fig. 3) to identify the faults and are explained as follows.
1) Change in the array voltage (ΔV): Variable Constant value

ΔV (i) = Vpv (i + 1) − Vpv (i) (1) V1 −19 V

ΔV V2 −11 V
where Vpv (i) and Vpv (i + 1) are the successive samples of V3 −40 V
ε1 31
the array voltage. E av ε2 40
2) Energy of the array voltage (Eav ): Eav is the sum of the ε3 1500
squares of the wavelet packet coefficients of the array ε4 107
voltage (Vwp c ), which is shown in Fig. 4 E Im p ε5 5 × 107


Eav = Vwp
2
c (i) . (2)
Step 1: Get the features ΔV(i), Eav , and EIm p for every t0
3) Energy for the change in the impedance (EI m p ):
seconds (1 s). Set i = 1.
Vpv (i + 1)−Vpv (i) Step 2: If ΔV (i) lies within the limits [V1 , V2 ], then go to
Change in the impedance (Z(i)) = .
Ipv (i + 1)−Ipv (i) step 4; otherwise, go to the next step.
(3) Step 3: If ΔV (i) < V3 , then go to step 5; otherwise, go to
Zwp c (i) is the wavelet packet coefficient for the change in step 8.
the impedance in the node “10” shown in Fig. 4. EIm p is the Step 4: If Eav < ε1 (or) EIm p > ε4 , then go to step 6; other-
sum of the squares of the wavelet packet coefficients Zwp c (i): wise, go to step 7.
 Step 5: If Eav lies within the limits (ε2 , ε3 ) (or) EIm p > ε5 ,
EIm p = Zwp2
c (i) . (4) then go to step 6; otherwise, go to step 7.
Step 6: “Fault occurred.” Go to step 9.
A. Flowchart for the Fault Detection Algorithm Step 7: “Fault has not occurred.” Go to the next step.
Step 8: If i < 1000, increment i by 1 and go to step 2; other-
Features extracted from Fig. 4, namely ΔV, Eav , and EIm p
wise, go to step 1.
are given as input to the FDA (shown in Fig. 5), and their thresh-
Step 9: Disconnect the PV array from the ac grid.
old values are listed in Table III. When a fault or partial shading
occurs in a PV system, instantly VPV decreases (ΔV is negative),
B. Determination of Threshold Values
whereas if irradiation increases, VPV will increase (ΔV is pos-
itive). The main aim is to detect the faults and partial shading; To determine the threshold values, a 4 × 4 PV array shown
therefore, the algorithm will execute only when ΔV is negative. in Fig. 1 is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink under various con-
Furthermore, the step-by-step execution of the algorithm is as ditions such as faults with different percentage mismatch at
follows. discrete irradiance level, faults created at different instants in
KUMAR et al.: ONLINE FAULT DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS USING WAVELET PACKETS 261

Fig. 6. Variation of ΔV as a function of E av with and without 25% mismatch Fig. 7. At different irradiations, ΔV and E av values with and without fault
fault at different irradiations. having more than 50% mismatch.

the time interval (starting, ending and middle of the interval),

partial shading, and sudden change in the irradiation conditions.
Under STC, the PV array operates at a maximum power point
(MPP) of (144 V, 11.12 A), and the magnitudes of Eav and EIm p
are approximately equal to 35 and 8.3, respectively. At the time
of fault occurrence, depending on the magnitude of ΔV, Eav ,
and EIm p , the threshold values are chosen as follows.
1) V1 , V2 , and ε1 : These limits are determined by simu-
lating an LL fault with 25% mismatch (F1 shown in Fig. 1)
at two extreme irradiation levels: 1) 1000 W/m2 (STC); and
2) 230 W/m2 (low irradiance). Due to this fault, at an ir-
radiance of 1000 W/m2 , VPV drops from 145 to 128 V
(ΔV = 128 V−145 V = −17 V), whereas at 230 W/m2 , ΔV
is −13.2 V (= 105.7 V–118.9 V) and the postfault VM PP oper-
ates at reduced voltage. Based on the voltage drop under extreme
irradiation conditions and with a voltage tolerance of 1% of VPV ,
the voltage limits for the identification of the LL fault with 25% Fig. 8. At different irradiations, variation of E Im p with respect to ΔV with
mismatch are considered as [−19 V, −11 V] (say V1 = −19 V, and without fault.
V2 = −11 V). For certain partial shading and sudden change
in the irradiation conditions, the change in VPV lies within the
limits [V1 , V2 ]. Hence, to differentiate the faults from environ- different irradiation levels, partial shading at more than one
mental disturbances, another feature Eav is used. From Fig. 6, it module with a shaded irradiance of 500, 400, 300, and
is observed that most of the fault data lie within the area bounded 200 W/m2 , and irradiation changes in steps of ±100, ±200,
by the ΔV limits [V1 , V2 ] and below the Eav magnitude of 31 and ±300 W/m2 . In Fig. 7, the entire fault data lie on the left-
(say ε1 ). The undetected faults are marked with circles, since hand side of −40 V (represented with dotted line) and lie within
the magnitude of Eav is approximately equal to the magnitude the Eav limits of [40, 1500] (say [ε2 , ε3 ]).
of Eav under normal conditions. 3) Determination of ε4 and ε5 : Impedance seen by the dc–dc
2) V3 , ε2 , and ε3 : For more than 25% mismatch fault, post- converter changes whenever a fault or irradiation change occurs
fault VM PP is near to prefault VM PP , and the magnitude of Eav in a PV system. Hence, to improve the accuracy in detecting
is increasing, which is contrary to the Eav changing pattern dur- the faults, another feature called energy for the change in the
ing the 25% mismatch fault. Moreover, the magnitude of ΔV impedance (Eim p ) is used. Fig. 8 shows the distribution of sim-
increases with the percentage mismatch. Hence, the lower limit ulated faults and normal condition data at various irradiations.
(V3 ) can be calculated by simulating an LL fault with 50% mis- From the plot, for ΔV < −40, the threshold value for Eim p
match at a low irradiation of 230 W/m2 . At this instant of fault, is chosen as 5 × 107 (say ε5 ), and for ΔV within the limits
the VPV suddenly drops from 120.9 to 79 V (ΔV = −41.9 V), [−19 V, −11 V], the threshold value for EIm p is selected as 107
and hence, the upper limit V3 is chosen as −40 V (say V3 ), be- (say ε4 ), above which it indicates the occurrence of fault in the
low which the fault occurs. Fig. 7 shows the plot between ΔV PV array. The undetected faults in Figs. 6. and 7 are identified
and Eav for various LL faults with more than 25% mismatch at with these threshold values ε4 and ε5 .
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TABLE IV
ACCURACY (IN PERCENT) OF THE PROPOSED METHOD
Irradiation (w/m2 ) % mismatch
25% 50% 75% 100%
1000 15/15 15/15 15/15 15/15
800 15/15 15/15 15/15 15/15
600 15/15 15/15 15/15 15/15
230 13/15 15/15 15/15 15/15
Table IV gives the accuracy details of the proposed method
for various mismatch faults at discrete irradiation levels. Hence,
the proposed algorithm exhibits a promising performance in
meeting the challenges.
C. Generalized Procedure to Determine Threshold Values
Step 1: Simulate all the possible percentage mismatch (1, 2, 3,
. . . N modules) LL faults in the required array configuration
(say N × M) at extreme irradiation levels (say 1000 and
230 W/m2 ) and at a temperature of 25 °C.
Step 2: At the instant of each fault, calculate the drop in the
array voltage (Vdrop ) and the energy values Eav and Eim p for
a fixed duration of time interval (say 1 s).
Step 3: Segregate the faults into two groups, Group A and Group
B, based on the postfault operating voltage.
Group A: Up to certain percentage mismatch fault, the faulty
string supplies the power to the load, and the corresponding
postfault VM PP operates at reduced voltage (say 25% mismatch
fault in the 4 × 4 configuration).
Group B: After certain percentage mismatch fault, the faulty
string is open circuited due to the characteristics of the blocking
diode, and the postfault VM PP operates near to prefault MPP
voltage (say more than 25% mismatch fault in the 4 × 4 con-
figuration).
Step 4: In Group A, for each percentage mismatch fault, the
threshold values for each parameter are calculated as follows:
ΔV Upper limit = Vdrop at 230 W/m2 , 25 °C + tolerance
(1% of array voltage).
ΔV Lower limit = Vdrop at 1000 W/m2 , 25 °C + tolerance
(1% of array voltage).
Eim p Lower limit = Eim p at 230 W/m2 , 25 °C.
Eav Upper limit = Eav at 1000 W/m2 , 25 °C.
Step 5: In Group B, for each percentage mismatch fault, the
threshold values for each parameter are calculated as follows:
ΔV Upper limit = Vdrop at 230 W/m2 , 25 °C + tolerance
(1% of array voltage).
ΔV Lower limit = Vdrop at 1000 W/m2 , 25 °C + tolerance
(1% of array voltage).
Eim p Lower limit = Eim p at 230 W/m2 , 25 °C.
Eav Lower limit = Eav at 230 W/m2 , 25 °C.
The Eav upper limit is determined by simulating the various
irradiation changes (say ±100, ±200, and ±300 W/m2 ), and fix
IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 8, NO. 1, JANUARY 2018
Fig. 9. (a) 4 × 4 PV array. (b) Data acquisition using NI instruments.
(C) Grid-connected inverter.
the Eav upper limit such that these irradiation changes should
not be detected as a fault.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A 4 × 4 PV array is connected in a series–parallel config-
uration for experimental verification of the proposed method
(shown in Fig. 9). The PV status is indicated with “0” for nor-
mal operation of the PV array and is indicated with “1” when a
fault is occurred in the PV array. Array voltage and current are
sampled at a frequency of 1 kHz using NI instruments.
A. Line–Line Fault With One-Module Mismatch (F1)
To observe the performance of the proposed method, at the
time of 11:17 hours, an LL fault with one-module mismatch (F1
shown in Fig. 1) is created at a low irradiation of 360 W/m2
shown in Fig. 10. At this instant, VPV suddenly drops from 141
to 125.2 V, and hence, ΔV = −15.8 V. Since the ΔV value
lies within the limits [−19 V, −11 V], the algorithm checks
for the energy condition. Energies EIm p and Eav are calculated
for every 1000 samples per second. At this instant of time, the
magnitude of Eav is 258.5 (< ε1, condition not satisfied), and
the magnitude of EIm p is 5.47 × 108 (> ε4 , condition satisfied).
As ΔV and one of the energy condition (EIm p ) is satisfied, then
there is a fault occurred in the PV array at this instant of time
11:17 hours. Other than this point of time, even though VPV is
continuously changing, but ΔV is greater than −10 V, which is
out of limits. Hence, an LL fault is found to occur at the instant
of 11:17 hours, and from this instant, the PV status is changed
to 1.
B. Line–Line Faults With More Than One-Module Mismatch
(F2, F3, and F4)
An LL fault with two-module mismatch is created on a cloudy
day, during which the incident irradiation, VPV , and IPV are
recorded from 11:10 to 11:38 hours and are shown in Fig. 11.
KUMAR et al.: ONLINE FAULT DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS USING WAVELET PACKETS
Fig. 10. Experimental results for an LL fault with one-module mismatch at
low irradiation level.
Fig. 11. Experimental results for an LL fault with two-module mismatch.
263
Fig. 12. Experimental results for dynamic shading.
At time t = 11:31 hours, an LL fault with two-module mis-
match is introduced in the PV array (F2 shown in Fig. 1). At the
instant of fault, VPV drops from 142.9 to 0 V, instead of 85% of
open-circuit voltage (Vo c ), which is approximately 85 V (from
the simulation). This is because of limitation in the minimum
operating voltage of the inverter, i.e., 120 V, below which the
inverter fails to operate. Therefore, the inverter will be turned
OFF, and VPV drops to 0 V. After some time, the MPPT and the
inverter start working; then, VPV increases from 0 to 163 V and
settles at 146.4 V, which is called voltage at the MPP (Vm pp )
shown in Fig. 11. At the instant 11:31 hours, the change in the
array voltage (ΔV) is –142.9 V, which is less than ε3 ; then, the
algorithm checks for the energy condition. At this instant, the
magnitude of Eav is 20,650 (< ε3 , condition not satisfied) and
the magnitude of EIm p is 1 × 1010 (> ε5 , condition satisfied).
Hence, an LL fault occurred at this instant, and the PV status is
changed to 1 at 11:31 hours.
For LL faults with three-module (F3) and four-module (F4)
mismatch, the experimental results are similar to that of the two-
module mismatch, since in all these three cases after the fault,
the VPV drops to 0 V because of the inverter failure.
C. Partial Shading
Partial shading is a temporary fault, due to which there is a
transitory reduction in the output power. There are two types of
shadings: static and dynamic shading. Static shading is caused
by the leaves, bird droppings, and dust accumulated on the
glass, whereas dynamic shading occurs due to nearby buildings,
rooftop structures, and chimneys. In dynamic shading, as the
time progresses, the shading area on the PV modules is chang-
ing, due to which there is a continuous variation in the output
power.
264
Experimentally, at time 09:10 hours, dynamic shading is in-
troduced by arranging a wooden plank near to the PV array,
which casts shadow on the PV modules. As the time progresses,
the shadowing part on the module increases and it spreads from
one module to another module, and the corresponding variation
of VPV , ΔV, Eav , and EIm p is shown in Fig. 12. From Fig. 12,
even though the ΔV value lies within the limits [−19 V, −11 V],
the corresponding Eav (<ε1 ) and EIm p (>ε4 ) conditions are
not satisfied. However, at certain time periods, even though the
ΔV value is small, but the corresponding Eim p value is in the
order of 107 . It is because of small change in the array current
(= I2 − I1 , which is in the order of milliamperes), which re-
sults in large change in the impedance ( = (V2 − V1 )/(I2 −
I1 )), and the corresponding magnitude of Eim p is very high and
is in the order 107 . It is notable that the proposed algorithm
performs well, and a normal (no fault) status is recorded.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has proposed an online method to identify the
faults under low irradiation and has also differentiated the partial
shading from the faulty conditions based on the WPT. Fault
diagnosis has been performed by using three variables namely,
change in the array voltage, energy of the array voltage, and
energy for the change in the impedance. This method requires
only array voltage and array current, which are readily available
at the input of the inverter and hence reduces the cost of the
protection system. The proposed method has been validated
with both the simulation and experimental results and shows its
auspicious achievement in resolving the challenges.
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B. Pradeep Kumar (S’17) received the B.Tech. de-
gree in electrical and electronics engineering from
K.S.R.M. College of Engineering, Kadapa, India, in
2005, and the M.Tech. degree in power electron-
ics from B.M.S. College of Engineering, Bangalore,
India, in 2008.
He is currently a Full-Time Research Scholar with
the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli,
India. His research interests include identification
of faults, degradation in photovoltaic systems, and
power electronics.
G. Saravana Ilango (SM’17) received the Graduate
degree electrical and electronics engineering from the
University of Madras, Chennai, India, in 2000, the
Master’s degree in power electronics and drives from
Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India, in
2001, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineer-
ing from the National Institute of Technology (NIT),
Tiruchirappalli, in 2009.
From 2001 to 2004, he was a Lecturer with the
Noorul Islam College of Engineering, Kumaracoil,
India. He has been an Assistant Professor with the
NIT Tiruchirappalli since 2006. His research interests include FACTS con-
trollers, digital controllers, and renewable energy systems.
KUMAR et al.: ONLINE FAULT DETECTION AND DIAGNOSIS IN PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS USING WAVELET PACKETS
M. Jaya Bharata Reddy (SM’13) received the
B.E. degree in electrical and electronics engineering
from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, India, in
2002, and the M.E. degree in electrical engineering
and Ph.D. degree in power system from Birla Insti-
tute of Technology, Ranchi, India, in 2004 and 2008,
respectively.
He is currently an Associate Professor with the
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineer-
ing, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli,
India. His current research interests include smart
grids, substation automation, wide-area protection, digital relaying, and power
system protection.
Dr. Reddy is an Editorial Board Member of Electrical Power Components
and Systems.
265
Nagamani Chilakapati (M’10–SM’16) received the
M.Tech. degree in power electronics from the In-
dian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in 1984,
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia, in
2001.
From 1985 to 1991, she was with the Central
Power Research Institute, Bangaluru, India. Subse-
quently, she joined the Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Tech-
nology, Tiruchirappalli, India, where she is currently
a Professor. Her research interests include power electronics and drives, renew-
able energy systems, and FACTS controllers.