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@ARTICLE{Wittmann:1029115,
author = {Wittmann, Ernst and Buerhop-Lutz, Claudia and Christlein,
Vincent and Hauch, Jens and Brabec, Christoph and Peters,
Ian Marius},
title = {{T}he {V}oltage-{E}ar – {A}n {A}nomaly in photovoltaic
systems with undersized inverters},
journal = {IEEE photonics journal},
volume = {16},
number = {4},
issn = {1943-0655},
address = {New York, NY},
publisher = {IEEE},
reportid = {FZJ-2024-04971},
pages = {1 - 6},
year = {2024},
abstract = {This study presents a phenomenon in photovoltaic field
installations we call voltage ear. PV installations exhibit
the voltage ear under specific conditions where modules
generate more power than the inverter can handle. When
inverters exceed their power limit it results in inverter
clipping, and the solar modules are regulated to operate at
a voltage above that at maximum power. This kind of voltage
rise leads to a specific pattern in the monitoring data –
the voltage ear. In the present study, data from a solar
park in France was analyzed. This park featured a high rate
of inverter malfunctions, including overheating and fires,
resulting in an estimated $5\%$ failure rate and,
ultimately, in a complete replacement of inverters. An
automated analysis of the monitoring data revealed 32.000
occurrences of excess voltage in 1.65 million data points
$(2\%).$ Instances of the phenomena were detected and
segmented using a K-means sorting algorithm, which yielded a
perfect recall value. Analysis of the identified voltage ear
conditions showed, that it occurs predominantly during
seasons of high irradiance and cool temperatures. Excess
voltages of up to 161 V in single strings were observed,
increasing the probability for PID and inverter damage. The
direct yield loss due to deviation from maximum power point
was between $0.02\%$ in January and $0.9\%$ in June. We
assume, that the voltage ear is a symptom of system design
issues that can result in malfunctioning of inverters and
hope that it will be useful as an indicator for identifying
design and operation issues.},
cin = {IEK-11 / IET-2},
ddc = {620},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IEK-11-20140314 / I:(DE-Juel1)IET-2-20140314},
pnm = {1214 - Modules, stability, performance and specific
applications (POF4-121)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-1214},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
UT = {WOS:001283252600003},
doi = {10.1109/JPHOT.2024.3430029},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1029115},
}