System and method for monitoring photovoltaic power generation

• US 10,540,458 B2
• Filed: 10/19/2016
• Issued: 01/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Sejong Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation Hongik University
• Original Assignee: Sejong Industry-Academia Cooperation Foundation Hongik University
• Inventors: Son, Hyun Seung, Park, Bo Kyung, Jang, Woo Sung, Kim, Robert Young Chul
• Primary Examiner(s): Thangavelu, Kandasamy
• Application Number:
  US15/297,268
• Publication Number:
  US 20170308628A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,189 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G05F 1/66 Regulating electric power
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/20 Design optimisation, verification or simulation optimisation, verification or simulation of circuit designs G06F30/30
• CPC Class Codes: H02S 50/00 Monitoring or testing of PV systems, e.g. load balancing or fault identification
• CPC Class Codes: Y02E 10/50 Photovoltaic [PV] energy

Abstract

Disclosed are a system and method for monitoring photovoltaic power generation, which may enhance compatibility with the existing legacy system by enabling data integration between monitoring systems that use different kinds of protocols on the basis of a meta-model and may automatically generate code for processing data and automatically generate a program for processing a protocol through the generated code, thus allowing even a user who does not know the protocol well to easily connect devices.

Claims

1. A method of monitoring photovoltaic power generation using a plurality of photovoltaic power generation facilities installed in a regionally distributed manner, each of which includes an additional facility and a power generation unit for generating power using a solar cell module, and an integrated server for managing the photovoltaic power generation facilities in an integrated manner, the method comprising generating an integrated communication protocol applied to all of the plurality of photovoltaic power generation facilities and the integrated server, wherein the generating of an integrated communication protocol comprises:

when power generation data for monitoring a power generation state of the power generation unit and additional facility data for monitoring a state of the additional facility, which is composed of a junction box, an inverter, and a sensor installed in the power generation unit, are provided to the integrated server through heterogeneous communication protocols that are individually used by the plurality of photovoltaic power generation facilities,

individually modeling the heterogeneous communication protocols based on a meta-model;

automatically generating program code for interpreting the modeled heterogeneous communication protocols; and

connectively mapping monitoring data collected by the photovoltaic power generation facilities to an element of an integrated meta-model designed in the integrated server by executing the generated program code, wherein;

the modeling operation comprises determining formats and an order of the heterogeneous communication protocols used by the photovoltaic power generation facilities, writing a type and a size of the monitoring data, modeling the heterogeneous communication protocols to block-shaped elements arranged in the order of the heterogeneous communication protocols, processing the monitoring data according to attributes of the modeled block-shaped elements, and storing the processed monitoring data in a local server of a corresponding photovoltaic power generation facility;

a default order of the modeled block-shaped elements for which the monitoring data is to be processed is from left to right, and when there are lower blocks, all of the lower blocks are processed, and then a first upper block at a right side is processed;

the generating operation comprises automatically generating the program code for interpreting the heterogeneous communication protocols according to a rule set in a util class and also the attributes of the block-shaped elements model in the modeling operation by a code generation unit stored in the util class and storing the generated program code in a data class;

the mapping operation comprises executing the program code generated in the generating operation to interpret the heterogeneous communication protocols, receiving the monitoring data collected by the photovoltaic power generation facilities from the integrated server through the interpreted heterogeneous communication protocols, storing the received monitoring data in the data class, and mapping the monitoring data stored in the data class to the element of the integrated meta-model of the integrated server using a getter function of the data class; and

when the monitoring data is mapped using the getter function, the power generation data, sensor data, inverter data, and junction box data are mapped to an element PlatDisplay, an element Sensors, an element Inverters, and an element JunctionBoxes, respectively.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the generating operation further comprises a send/receive class for sending or receiving the heterogeneous communication protocols;

the send/receive class includes a send API and a receive API;

the send API obtains, from the data class, byte data to be used for a serial port when a protocol is sent; and

the receive API sequentially reads and input the obtained byte data into the data class when the protocol is received.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the data class forms data in order of inputs made into the data protocol model.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the util class includes a util API that is already made; and

the util API is determined depending on data types of the heterogeneous communication protocols of the photovoltaic power generation facilities, which are input into the modeled heterogeneous communication protocols, and is utilized to interpret the heterogeneous communication protocols.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the element PlatDisplay includes a current output amount, current-day power generation information, previous-day power generation information, current-month power generation information, previous-month power generation information, and total power generation information, which show an entire monitoring result;

the element Inverters includes current power generation, current-day power generation, previous-day power generation, total power generation, output current and voltage, input power, current, voltage, and frequency, and inverter warning information, which are obtainable by an inverter;

the element Sensors includes horizontal solar radiation, tilted solar radiation, module temperature, external temperature, CO2 concentration, and slope, which are information measured by sensors of each of the photovoltaic power generation facilities; and

the element JunctionBoxes used to obtain a voltage and current of the photovoltaic power generation facility.