Title: Reliability estimation of photovoltaic system using Markov process and dynamic programming approach

Authors: Sonal Sindhu; Vijay Nehra; S.C. Malik

Addresses: Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan 131035, Sonipat, Haryana, India ' Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan 131035, Sonipat, Haryana, India ' Department of Statistics, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak 124001, Haryana, India

Abstract: Adoption of solar energy is still at early stage and has failed to reach expected levels because of presence of several impeding factors lying in its diffusion path. One of the major impediments in adoption of Photovoltaic (PV) systems is low efficiency due to frequent failures. With the worldwide growth of renewable energy, the importance of the aspect of the reliability and stability is getting close attention. Present study is oriented towards deriving the reliability measures of a PV system made up of three subsystems, i.e. PV array, inverter and transformer connected in series. The behaviours of Mean Time to System Failure (MTSF), availability and cost-benefit function have been analysed graphically. Present investigation reveals that inverter failure affects the performance of PV system in significant manner. To fix this issue, Dynamic Programming Approach (DPA) has been applied and 95% reliability has been achieved.

Keywords: photovoltaic system; exponential distribution; Markov process; reliability measures; MTSF; availability; cost-benefit function; regenerative point technique; dynamic programming approach.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRS.2017.088554

International Journal of Reliability and Safety, 2017 Vol.11 No.1/2, pp.132 - 151

Received: 06 Apr 2017
Accepted: 08 Sep 2017
Published online: 11 Dec 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article