Health Performance Assessment of Grid-Connected PV Systems Using Safe Operating Area Concept

Abstract

The efficacy of a safe operating area (SOA) concept in assessing and sizing PV arrays with the inverter is highlighted in this paper. With substantial input data and using Mathcad's coding and some information derived from the inverter manufacturer, enables us to generate the SOA curve. Most of the simulation software, which is frequently offered on the commercial market by big solar firms, focuses on the early stages of designing and sizing, weather data information, as well as economic benefits. Dissimilar from other providers, the system integrators can effectively verify the current design using this concept, and it is also able to recognize the uncertainty behaviour that emerges during system operation. Concerning PV module technology, capacity size, and uncertainty in system behaviour, three different case studies have been chosen to verify the SOA concept and effectively demonstrate the SOA curve's ability to diagnose and correct system health. The findings also demonstrated some unpredictable behaviour, such as two cases exposed to undersized inverters that create clamping events due to inverter saturation and allow new adjustments to the configuration setups, while one oversized case when it has been verified by the SOA concept. Moving closer to the limit boundary of the SOA curve makes it more cost-effective to operate optimally and maximizes the system’s production with its maximum characteristics.