Undergraduate research assistant Mr. Safin H. Bayes and Ph.D. student Sawsan Shukri presented their paper entitled “Low Cost, Stand-Alone, In-situ, PV Curve Tracer” at the 2nd International Conference on Photovoltaic Science and Technology. The workshop, which was held virtually 30 November through 2 December 2020, was originally scheduled to be in-person in Ankara, TURKEY.
The paper aims to reduce the cost of a flexible and scalable i-v curve tracer that was developed previously in the REAPERLab. The system includes three main components: a source measuring unit, multiple relay boards, and a raspberry pi. The system enables four modes of operation: F1 is used to test individual PV modules, while F2 is used to perform a time-sequence test of the PV modules. F3 is used to test the interconnection of PV modules, and F4 is used to run a time-sequenced test of PV interconnections.