Estimating the Performance Loss Rate of Photovoltaic Systems Using Time Series Change Point Analysis

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Date
2023-04-26ISSN
1996-1073Publisher
MDPIPlace of publication
Basel, SwitzerlandSource
EnergiesVolume
16Issue
9Pages
1-18Google Scholar check
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The accurate quantification of the performance loss rate of photovoltaic systems is critical
for project economics. Following the current research activities in the photovoltaic performance and
reliability field, this work presents a comparative assessment between common change point methods
for performance loss rate estimation of fielded photovoltaic installations. An extensive testing
campaign was thus performed to evaluate time series analysis approaches for performance loss rate
evaluation of photovoltaic systems. Historical electrical data from eleven photovoltaic systems installed
in Nicosia, Cyprus, and the locations’ meteorological measurements over a period of 8 years
were used for this investigation. The application of change point detection algorithms on the constructed
monthly photovoltaic performance ratio series revealed that the obtained trend might not
always be linear. Specifically, thin film photovoltaic systems showed nonlinear behavior, while nonlinearities
were also detected for some crystalline silicon photovoltaic systems. When applying several
change point techniques, different numbers and locations of changes were detected, resulting
in different performance loss rate values (varying by up to 0.85%/year even for the same number of
change points). The results highlighted the importance of the application of nonlinear techniques
and the need to extract a robust nonlinear model for detecting significant changes in time series data
and estimating accurately the performance loss rate of photovoltaic installations.
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