Monitoring System for Tracking a PV Generator in an Experimental Smart Microgrid: An Open-Source Solution

Abstract

Smart grids and smart microgrids (SMGs) require proper monitoring for their operation. To this end, measuring, data acquisition, and storage, as well as remote online visualization of real-time information, must be performed using suitable equipment. An experimental SMG is being deployed that combines photovoltaics and the energy carrier hydrogen through the interconnection of photovoltaic panels, electrolyser, fuel cell, and load around a voltage bus powered by a lithium battery. This paper presents a monitoring system based on open-source hardware and software for tracking the temperature of the photovoltaic generator in such an SMG. In fact, the increases in temperature in PV modules lead to a decrease in their efficiency, so this parameter needs to be measured in order to monitor and evaluate the operation. Specifically, the developed monitoring system consists of a network of digital temperature sensors connected to an Arduino microcontroller, which feeds the acquired data to a Raspberry Pi microcomputer. The latter is accessed by a cloud-enabled user/operator interface implemented in Grafana. The monitoring system is expounded and experimental results are reported to validate the proposal.