Descriptive and Inferential Statistics for Supervising and Monitoring the Operation of PV Plants

This paper deals with the problem of supervising and monitoring a photovoltaic (PV) plant. First, an offline descriptive and inferential statistical procedure for evaluating the goodness of system performance is presented. Then, an online inferential algorithm for real-time monitoring and fault detection is introduced. The two methodologies utilize the energy output of inverters as input data and are valid for both Gaussian and non-normal distribution of data. The procedures have been tested on a real PV installation, and results are reported for the case of a grid-connected PV plant in Italy for which one PV module over 132 resulted in being badly connected.