Processes, Vol. 13, Pages 2999: Automated Detection of Shading Faults in Photovoltaic Modules Using Convolutional Neural Networks and I–V Curves

Processes doi: 10.3390/pr13092999

Authors:
Jesus A. Arenas-Prado
Angel H. Rangel-Rodriguez
Juan P. Amezquita-Sanchez
David Granados-Lieberman
Guillermo Tapia-Tinoco
Martin Valtierra-Rodriguez

Renewable energy technologies play a key role in mitigating climate change and advancing sustainable development. Among these, photovoltaic (PV) systems have experienced significant growth in recent years. However, shading, one of the most common faults in PV modules, can drastically degrade their performance. This study investigates the application of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for the automated detection and classification of shading faults, including multiple severity levels, using current–voltage (I–V) curves. Four scenarios were simulated in Simulink: a healthy module and three levels of shading severity (light, moderate, and severe). The resulting I–V curves were transformed into grayscale images and used to train and evaluate several custom-designed CNN architectures. The goal is to assess the capability of CNN-based models to accurately identify shading faults and discriminate between severity levels. Multiple network configurations were tested, varying image resolution, network depth, and filter parameters, to explore their impact on classification accuracy. Furthermore, robustness was evaluated by introducing Gaussian noise at different levels. The best-performing models achieved classification accuracies of 99.5% under noiseless conditions and 90.1% under a 10 dB noise condition, demonstrating that CNN-based approaches can be both effective and computationally lightweight. These results underscore the potential of this methodology for integration into automated diagnostic tools for PV systems, particularly in applications requiring fast and reliable fault detection.

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Jesus A. Arenas-Prado www.mdpi.com