Advantages and Limitations of Thermography in Utility Scale Solar PV Plants
Abstract
Thermal Imaging has always been used in military applications along with night vision, when there is no sun. Now is the time we need thermal imaging technology to check the performance and find out abnormalities/underperforming areas in Solar PV power plant. While the advantages of thermal imaging are large in number, but it comes with a need of awareness of the concepts of heat transfer and fundamentals of measurement. A lot of research has been done, on how to do the thermal imaging of various type of surfaces, which have glazing or some type of coating over them. This paper tries to summarize the knowledge gained in the field of heat transfer along with the application areas where Infrared (IR) thermography can help us track down high temperature regions (hot spots) in a Utility Scale Solar PV Plant. This paper will also serve as a quick reference guide for the Solar industry engineers for a fast set up, measurement and understanding of Thermographic Instruments. For the analysis purpose, a 100MW Utility scale solar site and few rooftop solar projects in India were chosen to collect the data and for taking the measurements.