Photovoltaic System Fault Detection Based On Ensemble Learning

An accurate fault detection capability for photovoltaic (PV) systems can improve PV system productivity by reducing operational costs and possible downtimes caused by a failure. In this paper, a fault detection method for PV systems is proposed. The proposed method is based on the use of an ensemble learning based model for classifying faults in PV systems. Ensemble learning combines the predictions of different algorithms in order to improve generalizability and robustness over a single learning algorithm. In this study, an ensemble learning model is built from some learning algorithms that commonly used in the classification problems. The ensemble model is then improved via parameter optimization. Each learning algorithms and the ensemble model that combines them are compared in terms of their prediction accuracy. The proposed method was implemented using Python with Scikit-learn machine learning library. The experimental validation of the method has been performed using electrical and meteorological measurements data from a residential PV system installed in Mu？la (Turkey). Results show that, with an optimized ensemble learning model, the proposed method not only improves the classification accuracy but also has a strong generalization ability for PV system fault diagnosis