International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]
Detection of the faults in the photovoltaic array under
normal and partial shading conditions
S Satheesh Kumar
Department of Electrical Technology
Karunya University
Coimbatore, India
satheesh@karunya.edu
Abstract— This paper propounds a novel technique for
detection of the faults in photovoltaic array by using Artificial
Neural Network. By using a simulation model, the power
variation under different faulty conditions such as open circuit
fault, short circuit fault, and bridging fault are measured under
normal and partial shading conditions. The simulated attributes
are given to the Artificial Neural Network to predict the type of
fault occurred in or between photovoltaic modules. Finally, three
different training algorithms of Artificial Neural Network are
compared for fault detection with help of mean square error as
the performance parameter.
Keywords—fault detection; photovoltaic array; artificial neural
network; open circuit fault; short circuit fault; bridging fault
I. INTRODUCTION
Renewable energy is free, clean and endless, such as solar
photovoltaic (PV), wind energy, tidal energy, etc… and the
applications of renewable resources have been regarded by all
users [1, 2]. In electrical markets, PV is growing rapidly due to
their advantages such as cost reduction of solar panel, life
period of the panel, easy installation and maintenance [3]. In
that maintenance has become the more important role for
extracting the maximum energy from the solar panel
throughout the life time of the module. By proper maintenance,
Maximum Power (Pm) extraction is ensured by Maximum
Power Point Tracker (MPPT). In literature, lots of papers are
presented in the area of maximum power point tracking [4-6].
Even if MPPT predicts the maximum power, the output from
solar modules may reduce due to faults in modules such as
open circuit faults, short circuit faults, bridging faults, etc…To
overcome these problems, three parameters such as Solar
Radiation (R), Temperature (T) and Power (P) of the solar
panel should be monitored to detect the faults occurred in or
between the photovoltaic module.
To detect the faults, several methods are available and
reported in the literature based on the fault detection through
online, comparison of measured and modeled PV outputs to
detect faults [7-9]. A circuit-based simulation was developed
for PV panel to detect the different type of faults occurred in
PV system [10]. The comprehensive study of electrical faults is
carried out in literature to analyze the I-V and P-V curves
under different faulty conditions [3]. The neural network is one
of the successful techniques for many applications such as
978-1-5090-5682-8 /17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
A Immanuel Selvakumar
Department of Electrical Technology
Karunya University
Coimbatore, India
immanuel@karunya.edu
forecasting the solar radiation, modeling and simulation and
also for Maximum Power Point Tracking under partially
shading conditions [11].
The main contribution of this work is to present a novel
technique to detect the faults occurring in or between the PV
modules. First, the reason for power reduction either partial
shading or by means of faults is identified. The partial shading
is identified by number of peaks in P-V graph. If power
reduction by means of faults, identify the type of faults
occurred in PV systems either an open circuit fault or short
circuit fault or bridging fault.
The paper is organized as follows: the next section presents
the modeling and simulation of PV Modules. Different types of
faults are given in section III. The proposed fault detection
method is provided in section IV. Results and Discussion are
given in section V.
II. MODELING AND SIMULATION OF PV MODULES
A. Modeling of PV Modules
Solar cell gives the nonlinear I-V characteristics and it is
obtained by a simple model which consists of a constant
current source, diode, and resistors associated in both series
and parallel model. Generally, one- diode model and two –
diode model are used to describe the electrical behaviors of the
solar cell. The equivalent circuit of a photovoltaic cell can be
approximated and given in Fig.1. [12, 13]
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuits for the one-diode model [3]
From the equivalent circuit, the I-V characteristics of PV
cell are characterized by the following equation [3]:
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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

ೇశ಺ೃೞ
௏ାூோೞ results of I-V and P-V of PV farm is given in Fig.2. The
‫ ܫ‬ൌ ‫ܫ‬௣௛ െ ‫ܫ‬௢ ൬݁ ௤ቀ ಼೅
ቁ
െ ͳ൰ െ ቀ ቁ (1)
ோೞ೓ specifications of PV module are given in Table. I.
Where, I is the maximum current from the solar cell, Iph is TABLE.I. SPECIFICATIONS OF PV MODULE
Input source current, Is is the saturation current, q is an electron S.No Parameters Value
charge (1.6x10-19 C), V is the voltage across the load, Rs is the
series resistance, K is the Boltzmann’s constant (1.38x10-23 1 Maximum Power 83 W
J/K), T is the temperature and Rsh is the shunt resistance. 2 Short-circuit current (Isc) 8.62 A

B. Simulation of PV Modules 3 Open circuit voltage 12.64 V

In this paper, a one-diode model of the solar cell is chosen 4 Current at Maximum power point (Imp) 8.07 A
for the simulation and performed in MATLAB R2016a 5 Voltage at Maximum power point (Vmp) 10.32 V
Simulink platform with the simulation time of the 40s and the

Fig.2. I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV Module

III. FAULTS IN PHOTOVOLTAIC ARRAYS

In a PV system, faults are related to PV array, the
inverter, cables, and electric grid. This paper aims to detect
the faults in or between the PV modules and their
classifications are given in Table 2.
TABLE 2. FAULTS IN PV ARRAY
S.No Fault type Name
1 Partial Shading Shadow effect
Short circuit fault
Fig. 3. I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV system under fault-free condition
2 Array Open circuit fault
B. Performance of PV under shading conditions
Bridging fault
In order to understand the I-V and P-V characteristics of
the solar module under different partial shaded patterns (SP)
IV. THE FAULT DETECTION METHOD and the shaded patterns are given in Table.3 and the P-V
A. Parameters identification graph is shown in Fig.4.
To predict the parameters that affects the performance of TABLE 3. SHADED PATTERNS
PV system under normal and faulty conditions. The Shaded patterns (SP) Range in W/m2
simulations are performed in MATLAB with two PV string
formed by four series-connected panels with each rating of SP1 1000, 800, 700, 600, 1000, 800, 700, 600
83W.The schematic diagram of 4x2 photovoltaic modules SP2 800,750,600,550,800,750,600,550
shown in Fig.3 and the I-V and P-V curve shown in Fig.4 for
SP3 1000,900,800,700,1000,900,800,700
fault free conditions under STC condition.

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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of 4x2 Photovoltaic modules

PS1 PS2 PS3

450
400
350
Power (W)

300
250
200
150
100
50
0
11.14848

13.62592
14.86464
16.10336
17.34208

19.81952
21.05824
22.29696
23.53568

26.01312
27.25184
28.49056
29.72928

32.20672
33.44544
34.68416
35.92288

38.40032
0
1.23872
2.47744
3.71616
4.95488
6.1936
7.43232
8.67104
9.90976

12.3872

18.5808

24.7744

30.968

37.1616

Voltage (V)

Fig. 4. P-V graph for different partial shading patterns

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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]

C. Performance of PV under faulty state ¾ Validation and Test data

In this paper, three faults are analyzed namely open
circuit fault, short circuit fault, and bridging fault. The Fig.
5,6and 7 shown the P-V and I-V of the solar module under
open circuit fault, short circuit fault and bridging fault
respectively under STC condition. Percentage of power
reduction due to the different faults occurred in PV system
given in Table 4.
Fig.5 I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV system under open circuit fault
¾ Decide the number of hidden neurons (Network
Architecture)
¾ Train Network by using any training algorithm
¾ Network test
Inputs for ANN is obtained from the simulation for all
above-mentioned fault with the range of 100 to 1000W/m2
solar radiation with step increment of 100W/m2 and
temperature range of 25-35°C with step increment of 1°C.
Targets are taken numerical values such as for normal
condition ‘1’, open circuit fault ‘2’, bridging fault ‘3’ and
short circuit fault ‘4’. The same type of faults is conducted
under partial shading conditions also with the values of ‘5’,
‘6’, ‘7’ and ‘8’ respectively. Inputs and targets are randomly
divided like Training 70% (308 samples), Validation 15%
(66 samples) and Testing 15% (66 samples).
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This section gives the results obtained from the ANN and
tested the result with some random values either proposed
method is successful to predict the fault or not.

Fig.6 I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV system under bridging fault

Fig.8. Performance of Neural Network under Bayesian Regularization

Fig.7 I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV system under short circuit fault
TABLE 4. REDUCTION OF POWER DUE TO DIFFERENT FAULTS
Fig.9. Simulink diagram for testing the fault
Maximum Power
Reduction of power
PV System Condition Obtained from the
in percentage
PV System in W
Normal condition 666 0
Open circuit fault 508 23.7
Bridging fault 520 21.9
Short circuit fault 519 22.0

D. ANN based approach

From the literature, ANN is one of the successful Fig. 10. Fault denotation for particular input parameters
methods for various applications in the photovoltaic system.
Fig.8 shows the performance of neural network under
The ANN model has following steps:
Bayesian Regularization. Simulink diagram and fault
¾ Selection of Input and Targets

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 International Conference on Innovations in Power and Advanced Computing Technologies [i-PACT2017]
denotation for particular input parameters (Solar radiation:
300W/m2; Temperature: 31°C; Power: 151W) are shown in
the Fig. 9 and Fig. 10. Table.5 shows the Mean Square Error
for different algorithms used in ANN.
TABLE 5. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF DIFFERENT
ALGORTHIMS
Algorithm Mean Square Error
Levenberg-Marquardt 0.5792
Bayesian Regularization 0.2138
Scaled Conjugate Gradient 0.7300
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the fault detection method is proposed to
detect the fault occurred in or between the PV modules. The
performance of PV module has been investigated in this
paper for different faults such as open circuit fault, short
circuit fault and bridging fault under normal and partial
shaded conditions. ANN is used to detect the faults occurred
in or between PV modules under normal and partial shading
conditions and it is tested with random inputs. Future work
is to locating the fault in the large scale PV system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank Karunya University for their
support to do research by providing the research ambiance.
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