Solar Photovoltaic Hotspot Inspection Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Thermal Images at a Solar Field in South India

作者：Pruthviraj Umesh, Yashwant Kashyap, Effrosyni Baxevanaki, Panagiotis Kosmopoulos · 发表于：Remote Sensing · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3390/rs15071914 · 被引用次数：52 · 研究领域：Photovoltaic System Optimization Techniques、Energy and Environment Impacts、Photovoltaic Systems and Sustainability

The sun is an abundant source of energy, and solar energy has been at the forefront of the renewable energy sector for years. A way to convert it into electricity is by the use of solar cells. Multiple solar cells, connected to each other, create solar panels, which in their turn, are connected in a solar string, and they create solar farms. These structures are extremely efficient in electricity production, but also, cells are fragile in nature and delicate to environmental conditions, which is the reason why some of them show discrepancies and are called defective. In this research, a thermal camera mounted on a drone has been used for the first time in the solar farm operating conditions of India in order to capture images of the solar field and investigate solar panels for defective cells and create an orthomosaic image of the entire area. This procedure next year will be established on an international scale as a best practice example for commercialization, providing effortless photovoltaic monitoring and maintenance planning. For this process, an open source software WebODM has been used, and the entire field was digitized so as to identify the location of defective panels in the field. This software was the base in order to provide and analyze a digital twin of the studied area and the included photovoltaic panels. The defects on solar cells were identified with the use of thermal bands, which record and point out their temperature of them, whereas anomalies in the det...