Electromagnetic noise from solar cells

Public awareness of global environmental issues including global warming prevention has increased in recent times, as evidenced by the fact that over 130,000 houses have already installed photovoltaic power generation systems, and the number of people using such systems is increasing. The power conditioner is an indispensable component of a photovoltaic power generation system. Recent advances in semiconductor technology have seen growing efforts to improve the efficiency and reduce the size/weight of power conditioners. On the other hand, power conditioners do have a serious problem: they generate electromagnetic noise. To make matters worse, the electromagnetic noise that is generated at power conversion is transmitted to the solar cells through electric wires, the solar cells serving as an antenna to radiate the electromagnetic noise. The radiated electromagnetic noise may cause operation and communication failures in other electronic equipment. Amid this, there has as of yet been no standardization of electromagnetic environment compatibility either by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), or any other organization. We are hoping that a new EMC standard will be established, and believe it should cover photovoltaic power generation systems. To provide basic data for the establishment of this new standard, we conducted measurement and analysis on EMC for a photovoltaic power generation system based on the IEC61000 Series, the conventional EMC standard for electrical appliances.