Solar Photovoltaic System Maintenance Strategies: A Review

Solar energy as a source of clean and renewable energy generation has gained traction over the years as an alternative to conventional fossil fuels. This is as a result of the search for permanent and effective solutions to the environmental issues such as environmental pollution, global warming and greenhouse gas emission affecting our planet. Solar photovoltaic system is one of the technologies developed to harness solar energy which is in abundance across the globe. This technology however, has operational and maintenance setbacks and requires close and constant monitoring to maintain highly effective generation of energy. Engineers, researchers and other stakeholders in the field have over the years proposed and developed various operation and maintenance strategies designed to help solar photovoltaic systems maintain high generation efficiencies. The current study is an elaborate review of various strategies and methods proposed in literature and the effects of these strategies on overall system performance. It examines common solar photovoltaic system faults and the strategies or methods proposed by experts to mitigate these faults. The reviewed methods are organized in groups based on their functionality and the manner in which they detect faults in solar photovoltaic system operations.