Abstract

This work presents the enhanced functionalities of a solar panel when embedded circuitry is included in its construction. A voltage sweep allows to track the global maximum power point even in presence of partial shading, which is transmitted to a DC/DC converter in order to maximize the transferred power. This voltage sweep also allows to determine the operating condition of the photovoltaic module, thanks to a suitable algorithm, which is capable to generate an alarm signal when abnormal conditions are detected in the voltage-power curve. The inclusion of a central server allows to statistically process the information in order to prevent or predict evitable failures.