Reliability evaluation of future photovoltaic systems with smart operation strategy

This paper investigates a new operation strategy for photovoltaic (PV) systems, which improves the overall reliability of the system as a result of the improvement in the reliability of the critical components. First, a mathematical model is proposed using the fault tree analysis (FTA) to estimate the reliability of the PV systems in order to find the suitable maintenance strategies. The implementations demonstrate that it is essential to employ smart maintenance plans and monitor the identified most critical components of PV systems. Then, an innovative analytical method based on the Markov process is presented to model smart operation plans in PV systems. The impact of smart operation strategy on the PV systems is then evaluated. The objective of this paper is to develop plans for improving the reliability of PV systems. A series of case studies have been conducted to demonstrate the importance of smart operation strategies for PV systems as well as the applicability and feasibility of the proposed method.