A Novel Transfer Learning Approach for Detecting Partial Shading in Photovoltaic Systems

In Photovoltaic Systems, detecting partial shading is critical for optimizing energy output and ensuring system reliability. This paper presents a novel method for partial shading detection in photovoltaic systems, leveraging transfer learning to improve accuracy and efficiency. By utilizing a pre-trained InceptionV3 model, discriminative features are extracted from time series signals. To align with the architectural requirements of InceptionV3, these time series signals are transformed into 2D pixel-mapped images. The proposed model is rigorously validated using both balanced and unbalanced scenarios on the Grid-connected PV System Faults (GPVS-Faults) dataset, achieving remarkable accuracies of 96.73% and 94.59% in the respective scenarios. This approach represents a significant advancement in accurately identifying partial shading, thus enhancing the performance and reliability of solar energy systems.