Power Loss Estimation Approach for PV Systems Operating Under Faults

Ground faults are prevalent in solar PV systems and result in nontrivial power losses that reduce the fielded efficiency of PV systems. They are triggered by unintended connections of PV modules to ground which short-circuit PV modules and wastes their available power. Modeling a PV system with faults using existing tools is time consuming and increases exponentially with system size. This paper proposes a fast-modeling approach for PV systems operating under faults that facilitates predicting and estimating their power losses. The approach does not require simulating the entire I-V curve of PV systems and thus saves significant computational time without scarifying accuracy. The model utilizes Lambert W function that produces an explicit relation between the output current and terminal voltage of a PV system. A Simulink verification is used for validating the comparable accuracy with reduced computational time.