IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO.
3, MARCH 2018 2653
A Research on Power Line Communication
Based on Parallel Resonant Coupling
Technology in PV Module Monitoring
Wang Mao , Student Member, IEEE, Xing Zhang, Senior Member, IEEE, Renxian Cao,
Fusheng Wang , Member, IEEE, Tao Zhao, Student Member, IEEE, and Linchong Xu
Abstract—Intelligent photovoltaic (PV) module monitor-
ing can automatically locate the position of panels and
monitor the status of PV modules, which is of great signif-
icance for PV plants operation and maintenance. As a new
communication method in the field of PV monitoring, the
monitoring of PV modules based on power line communica-
tion is the future trend of PV power plants monitoring due to
its low maintenance cost and strong anti-interference abil-
ity. This paper presents an intelligent PV module monitoring
scheme based on the parallel resonant coupling unit, which
uses the dc bus as the communication channel and modula-
tes the monitoring data into a high-frequency form to carry
out the carrier communication. By using the parallel
resonant coupling, the high-frequency carrier wave is
injected into the dc bus, which improves the system
efficiency and anti-interference ability. In addition, an
adaptive level decision circuit is proposed to improve the
flexibility and scalability of the communication system by
adaptively changing the reference level of the decision
circuit. Experimental results achieved by a developed
power line transceiver demonstrate both feasibility and
validity of the proposed scheme.
Index Terms—Intelligent photovoltaic (PV) system, mod-
ule monitoring, parallel resonant coupling unit, power line
communication (PLC), PV plants maintenance.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE market for sustainable, renewable energies is growing
T fast and, in recent years, great progress in terms of the
overall efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) systems has been made
[1], [2]. However, a recent study by the International Energy
Agency (IEA) finds that faults and defects reduce PV plants
efficiency [3]–[6]. In order to improve the performance ratio
of PV plants, the IEA recommends that monitoring be taken
directly at the PV module. Module monitoring is capable of
finding a fault or failure in the PV system as soon as possible.
Manuscript received January 22, 2017; revised April 27, 2017 and
June 18, 2017; accepted June 30, 2017. Date of publication August
7, 2017; date of current version December 15, 2017. (Corresponding
author: Fusheng Wang.)
W. Mao, X. Zhang, F. Wang, and T. Zhao are with Hefei Univer-
sity of Technology, Hefei 230009, China (e-mail: hfut_maow@163.com;
honglf@ustc.edu.cn; 10748451@qq.com; 864125074@qq.com).
R. Cao and L. Xu are with Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd., Hefei
230088, China (e-mail: crx@sungrow.cn; xulc@sungrowpower.com).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2017.2736483
0278-0046 © 2017 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
The ability to predict failures by monitoring changes in system
parameters not only is significant for operation and maintenance
of PV plants, but also can offer plant owners the possibility to
increase profitability by decreasing downtime.
Existing systems typically exploit distributed sensors that
communicate with a remote station through a wireless proto-
col [8], [9], but only a few make use of dedicated cables [7].
Although its cost is low, the wireless communication, which uses
the common frequency, is particularly vulnerable to the inter-
ference of the same frequency band, which leads to an incorrect
transmission of the instruction and a damage to the security
operation of the power network. According to the National De-
velopment and Reform Commission’s “Power Monitoring Sys-
tem Security Provisions,” PV plants monitoring system shall
be a production control area, within which the use of wireless
communication equipment is strictly prohibited. Wired com-
munication requires additional communication cables, which
increases the cost of system operation and maintenance.
Power line communication (PLC) technology, as a new type
of communication in the field of PV monitoring, enables com-
munication over existing dc power lines and requires no ad-
ditional communication lines. Using PLC technology in PV
power plants monitoring is bound to be the trend of future
development.
Numerous PV monitoring systems based on PLC have been
studied [10]–[22]. A current pulse PLC scheme is proposed in
[10], which can transmit data signal of the PV module by the
instantaneous current drop pulse generated by shunt circuit of
the module. However, this scheme can only be one-way commu-
nication. In [11], an inductive coupling PLC scheme to realize
the transmission of the carrier communication signal through
the current transformer is proposed. However, the signal at-
tenuation of this scheme is large and the signal transmission
efficiency is low [12]–[14]. A capacitive coupling PLC scheme
is proposed in [15], which utilizes the coupling transformer to
transmit the carrier communication signal. However, due to the
parallel connection between the transformer and the PV mod-
ule, the power requirement of the signal transmitter is high and
the emission efficiency is low [16]. In [17]–[22], different PLC-
based PV module monitoring schemes are proposed, but all
proposed schemes are based on integrated PLC communication
modem which is expensive and heightens the cost of the PV
module monitoring.
2654 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 3, MARCH 2018
Fig. 1. Structure of intelligent PV module monitoring system based on
the parallel resonant coupling unit.
This paper proposes a PLC scheme based on parallel resonant
coupling unit. The scheme has not only high transmission ef-
ficiency, strong anti-interference ability, but also low cost. The
contents of this paper are arranged as following: in Section II,
the principle and implementation of PLC scheme based on par-
allel resonant coupling unit is introduced; the implemented PV
monitoring system and field test results are given in Section III;
and Section IV is the conclusion.
II. INTELLIGENT PV MODULE MONITORING SYSTEM BASED
ON THE PARALLEL RESONANT COUPLING UNIT
A. Intelligent PV Module Monitoring System Architecture
The structure of an intelligent PV module monitoring system
based on the parallel resonant coupling unit is shown in Fig. 1.
The proposed PV monitoring system is composed of two ele-
ments: smart communication module (SCM) and data collector
unit (DCU). The SCM is deployed at the rear side of the PV
module. It measures the corresponding PV module’s charac-
teristics based on three factors: dc voltage, direct current, and
temperature. From those measured data, each PV panel can be
diagnosed to decide whether it is normal or abnormal. The DCU,
which is deployed beside the PV inverter, periodically aggre-
gates the measured data of each PV module. The dc power line
becomes a communication medium between DCU and SCM.
DCU consists of signal processing unit, while SCM contains
two parts: signal bypass unit and signal processing unit. In order
to avoid fluctuations of the operating point of the PV module
induced by high-frequency carrier signals travelling across the
PV panel and the communication signals’ attenuation caused
by the ac impedance of PV module, a bypass unit, designed
to have the extremely low impedance at carrier frequency, is
connected in parallel with the solar panel, thus providing an
alternative bypass path for the high-frequency carrier signals.
With a major function to analyze and process the communication
signals, the signal processing unit mainly includes three parts:
signal modulation circuit, signal coupling circuit, and signal
demodulation circuit.
Fig. 2. Structure of signal modulation circuit based on the ASK modu-
lation method.
B. Signal Modulation Circuit
The signal modulation circuit transforms the measured
certain characteristics of the PV module into high-frequency
carrier signals for transmission. At present, current pulse, am-
plitude shift keying (ASK), and frequency shift keying (FSK)
are the three major utilized PLC modulation schemes in the
field of PV module monitoring. The current pulse modulation
scheme provides an uncomplicated arrangement, but it cannot
realize bidirectional communication [10]. The FSK modulation
scheme is less susceptible to noise jamming than ASK. How-
ever, it is complicated to realize and its bandwidth utilization is
lower than ASK [17]–[21]. Thus, considering that the noise at
the dc side is very low [26], the simple ASK modulation scheme
is adopted in the PV module monitoring system. The proposed
PLC module uses ASK digital modulation scheme, namely,
on-off keying. The carrier generator generates a carrier when
the transmitting signal from the universal asynchronous receiver
transmitter (UART) is logic “1” and no carrier when logic “0.”
Fig. 2 shows the structure of signal modulation circuit based
on the ASK modulation method. The measured certain parame-
ters of the PV panel, such as dc voltage, direct current, and tem-
perature, are converted into digital signals and modulated into
the high-frequency carrier signals by the MCU for transmission.
The sinusoidal carrier is generated by filtering the PWM car-
rier produced from MCU. Therefore, an m-derived low-pass
filter (LPF) with three notch points is designed for filtering
PWM wave [23]. In this paper, the PWM wave frequency is
selected as 200 kHz, and the corresponding three notch points
of LPF are 600 kHz, 1 MHz, and 1.4 MHz, respectively, which
mainly filter out third, fifth, and seventh harmonics. Fig. 3(a)
shows the designed filter under ideal conditions, and the corre-
sponding frequency response is shown in Fig. 3(c). As shown
in Fig. 3(c), the attenuation at three notch frequency points of
the designed LPF are 82, 112, and 119 dB, respectively, which
basically meet the designed requirements. However, in practical
situations, the effect of the parasitic parameters of the magnetic
components on the LPF should be taken into account. Fig. 3(b)
shows the equivalent circuit of the designed m-type LPF when
considering parasitic parameters. The parasitic parameters of the
magnetic components are measured by the Wayne Kerr 65120B
impedance analyzer. As is shown in Fig. 3(c), the frequency
response of the m-type LPF are almost the same below 2.5 MHz
under both two cases. Therefore, in practice, the performance of
the LPF can still meet the requirements. After the carrier is gen-
erated, the high-speed logic bilateral switch is controlled by the
digital signals generated from the UART of MCU to implement
ASK modulation.
et al.: RESEARCH ON POWER LINE COMMUNICATION BASED ON PARALLEL RESONANT COUPLING TECHNOLOGY IN PV MODULE MONITORING 2655

Fig. 4. Proposed coupling circuit based on the parallel resonant unit.

Fig. 5. Equivalent circuit of the high-frequency modulated signal in the

system comprising N coupling circuits.

bypass unit, can be neglected because the bypass unit is designed

to have extremely low impedance at the carrier frequency. Thus,
the signal transmission efficiency can be obtained as
ILo op ILo op
Fig. 3. (a) Designed m-type LPF under ideal conditions. (b) Designed η= × 100% = × 100%
m-type LPF when considering parasitic parameters. (c) Frequency re- IT x ILo op + ICoupler
sponse of m-type LPF under both two cases. UT x
Z C o u p le r R e
N Z C o u p le r + R e
= UT x UT x
× 100%
C. Signal Coupling Circuit Z C o u p le r R e + ZC o u p le r
N Z C o u p le r + R e

The coupling circuit performs the connection with the com-

1
munication channel. It acts as a filter through which the commu- = N Re
× 100%. (1)
nication signals pass and out-of-band noises are attenuated. The R e +Z C o u p l e r +1
proposed coupling circuit based on the parallel resonant unit in
this paper is shown in Fig. 4. As is shown in Fig. 4, in which In this paper, the terminating impedance of the receiver is
the inductor L and capacitor C1 are composed of the parallel 50 Ω. Therefore, the signal transmission efficiency can be ex-
resonant unit, the capacitor C2 located between the transformer pressed as
and the dc power bus block the dc current from the power line; 1
and Re is the terminating impedance of the receiving circuit. η= 50 N
× 100%. (2)
50+Z C o u p l e r +1
DC power signal forms the return circuit through the resonant
inductor, while the modulated signal is superimposed on the dc While the signal transmission efficiency of capacitive cou-
power line through a coupling transformer and a capacitor C2 . pling PLC scheme [15] is
IT x , ILo op are transmitter current and loop current for commu- ILo op ILo op
nication separately. η= × 100% = × 100%
IT x ILo op + ICoupler
Fig. 5 shows the equivalent circuit of the high-frequency
modulated signal in the system comprising N coupling circuits. UT x
N ZC o u p le r 1
ZCoupler is the impedance of coupling circuit, UT x is signal = UT x UT
× 100% = . (3)
+ x N +1
transmission voltage. Zbypass , which is the impedance of a N ZC o u p le r ZC o u p le r
2656 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 3, MARCH 2018
Fig. 6. Comparison of signal transmission efficiency of the coupling
circuit under different PLC schemes.
Fig. 7. (a) Equivalent circuit of coupling circuit of the proposed PLC
scheme. (b) Simplified equivalent circuit of coupling circuit.
As shown in Fig. 6, compared with the conventional capac-
itive coupling PLC scheme, the signal transmission efficiency
of the proposed PLC scheme is higher. Fig. 6 also shows that
the greater the impedance of the proposed coupling circuit, the
higher the signal transmission efficiency, the smaller the system
power loss; and that the reduced number of PV modules leads to
the higher signal transmission efficiency and the smaller system
power loss. Therefore, in order to improve the efficiency of sig-
nal transmitting, the impedance of the coupling circuit should
be increased as much as possible.
Fig. 7(a) illustrates the equivalent circuit of coupling circuit of
the proposed PLC scheme. Rl1 , Ll1 and Rl2 , Ll2 are the resistors
and leakage inductors of the primary and secondary windings,
respectively, Rm and Lm are the equivalent core loss resistor
and magnetizing inductor separately, C12 is the mutual capacitor
between the two windings, Rp1 and Cp1 are the parasitic resistor
and capacitor of resonant inductor, respectively. The simplified
equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 7(b) in which Z24 (s), Z23 (s),
Fig. 8. Comparison of impedance frequency response of the coupling
circuit under different parameters of the coupling transformer: (a) under
different parameters of the magnetizing inductor, (b) under different pa-
rameters of the leakage inductor, and (c) under different parameters of
the mutual capacitor between the two winding.
and Z34 (s) are
⎧ Z 2 (s)Z 4 (s)
⎪
⎪ Z24 (s) = Z2 (s) + Z4 (s) +
⎪
⎨ Z 3 (s)
Z 2 (s)Z 3 (s)
Z23 (s) = Z2 (s) + Z3 (s) + Z 4 (s) . (4)
⎪
⎪
⎪
⎩ Z (s) = Z (s) + Z (s) + Z 3 (s)Z 4 (s)
34 3 4 Z 2 (s)
Therefore, the impedance of the coupling circuit can be ob-
tained as, eq.(5) as shown at the bottom of next page
In this paper, we mainly consider how to increase the
impedance of the coupling circuit at carrier frequency as much
as possible. The impedance of the coupling circuit is greatly re-
lated to the parameters of coupling transformer and parallel res-
onant components. Fig. 8 shows the comparison of impedance
frequency response of the coupling circuit under different pa-
rameters of the coupling transformer. As shown in Fig. 8(a),
et al.: RESEARCH ON POWER LINE COMMUNICATION BASED ON PARALLEL RESONANT COUPLING TECHNOLOGY IN PV MODULE MONITORING 2657

the larger the magnetizing inductor, the greater the impedance D. Signal Demodulation Circuit
of the coupling circuit at resonant frequency. It can be known
The signal demodulation circuit is used to extract the original
from Fig. 8(b) and (c) that the leakage inductor and interwind-
information-bearing signal from the modulated carrier wave. As
ing capacitor have no effect on the impedance of the coupling
shown in Fig. 10, the demodulation circuit is mainly composed
circuit at the resonant frequency. In general, the parameters of
of bandpass filter (BPF), signal amplifier, envelope detector,
the coupling transformer have little effect on the impedance of
and decision circuit. The modulated carrier signal received by
the coupling circuit at resonant frequency.
the coupling transformer may contain switching noises and har-
Fig. 9 shows the comparison of the coupling circuit under
monics of the PV inverter, which are filtered by BPF. Therefore,
different parameters of the resonant components. In Fig. 9(a),
a passive LC BPF, which can be implemented at lower cost com-
with the increase of the parasitic resistor of resonant inductor,
pared with active BPF, is designed in this paper. Fig. 11(a) shows
the impedance of the coupling circuit at resonant frequency is
the developed filter, and the corresponding frequency response
decreased rapidly. Fig. 9(b) shows that the increase of the par-
is shown in Fig. 11(c). As shown in Fig. 11(c), the designed
asitic capacitor of resonant inductor leads to the impedance of
filter, whose lower cutoff −3 dB point is set by 169 kHz and
the coupling circuit at resonant frequency increase. Fig. 9(c)
upper cutoff −3 dB point is set by 220 kHz, can remove out-of-
shows different impedance frequency responses of the coupling
band noises. However, in practical situations, the effect of the
circuit under ideal capacitor, 5% tolerance capacitor and 10%
parasitic parameters of the magnetic components on the BPF
tolerance capacitor, respectively, when the resonant inductor is
should be taken into account. Fig. 11(b) shows the equivalent
constant. As shown in Fig. 9(c), compared with ideal impedance
circuit of the designed BPF when considering parasitic param-
at resonant frequency, the impedance of the coupling circuit
eters. As is shown in Fig. 11(c), the frequency response of the
under 5% tolerance capacitor is decreased by 22%, while the
BPF is almost the same before 500 kHz under both two cases.
impedance of the coupling circuit under 10% tolerance capac-
Thus, in practice, the performance of the BPF can still meet
itor is reduced by as much as 72%. Fig. 9(d) shows different
the requirements. After filtered by BPF, the signal is amplified
impedance frequency responses of the coupling circuit under
and fed into the envelope detector that is composed of a diode,
ideal inductor, 5% tolerance inductor, and 10% tolerance in-
a capacitor, and a resistor. The decision circuit judges whether
ductor, respectively, when the resonant capacitor is constant.
the received signal is logic “1” or “0.” The decided logic data is
As Fig. 9(d) shows, compared with ideal impedance at reso-
input to the MCU.
nant frequency, the impedance of the coupling circuit under
However, the amplitude of the received signal varies with the
5% tolerance inductor drops by 70%, while the impedance of
number of modules in the PV system. The change of the ampli-
the coupling circuit under 10% tolerance inductor is reduced
tude of the received signal can lead to variations in the amplitude
by up to 83%. Generally, the effect of the parasitic parameters
of the detected signal. Such variations may cause output errors
of resonant inductor and the resonant components’ tolerances
in decision circuit because of the fixed judgment level. In order
on the impedance of coupling circuit at resonant frequency is
to minimize the digital signal quantization errors, the automatic
large.
gain control amplifier circuit is typically adopted [24], [25],
In order to increase the impedance of the coupling circuit at
which adjusts the amplifier gain properly based on the ampli-
resonant frequency for improving the signal transmission ef-
tude of the received signal detected by peak detector circuit to
ficiency as much as possible, the selected parasitic resistor of
keep the amplitude of the amplified signal unchanged. How-
resonant inductor and the selected tolerance of resonant compo-
ever, the implementation of this method is complex and costly.
nents should be as small as possible. Therefore, considering the
Therefore, a novel adaptive level decision circuit is proposed
signal transmitting efficiency and the system cost, the selected
in this paper. As shown in Fig. 12(a), the proposed adaptive
parasitic resistor of resonant inductor is about 0.4 Ω and the
level decision circuit is composed of LPF and resistance voltage
resonant elements are selected as 5% tolerance capacitor and
division circuit. As Fig. 12(b) shows, the adaptive level deci-
10% tolerance inductor.
sion circuit, which functions as an average detector that extracts

Zcoupler (s) = Z1 (s) + (Z24 (s)// ((Z5 (s)//Z23 (s)) + (Z6 (s)//Z34 (s))))
    
Z5 (s)Z23 (s) Z6 (s)Z34 (s)
= Z1 (s) + Z24 (s)// +
Z5 (s) + Z23 (s) Z6 (s) + Z34 (s)
  
Z5 (s)Z23 (s) (Z6 (s) + Z34 (s)) + Z6 (s)Z34 (s) (Z5 (s) + Z23 (s))
= Z1 (s) + Z24 (s)//
(Z5 (s) + Z23 (s)) (Z6 (s) + Z34 (s))
= Z1 (s)
Z24 (s) (Z5 (s)Z23 (s) (Z6 (s) + Z34 (s)) + Z6 (s)Z34 (s) (Z5 (s) + Z23 (s)))
+ .
Z24 (s) ((Z5 (s) + Z23 (s)) (Z6 (s) + Z34 (s))) + Z5 (s)Z23 (s) (Z6 (s) + Z34 (s)) + Z6 (s)Z34 (s) (Z5 (s) + Z23 (s))
(5)
2658 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 3, MARCH 2018

Fig. 11. (a) Designed BPF under ideal conditions. (b) Designed BPF
when considering parasitic parameters. (c) Frequency response of BPF
under both two cases.

Fig. 9. Comparison of impedance frequency response of the coupling

circuit under different parameters of the resonant components: (a) un-
der different parameters of the parasitic resistor of resonant inductor,
(b) under different parameters of the parasitic capacitor of resonant in-
ductor, (c) under different tolerances of resonant capacitor, and (d) under
different tolerances of resonant inductor.

Fig. 12. (a) Proposed adaptive level decision circuit. (b) Theoretical
Fig. 10. Structure of signal demodulation circuit. waveform with the proposed circuit.
et al.: RESEARCH ON POWER LINE COMMUNICATION BASED ON PARALLEL RESONANT COUPLING TECHNOLOGY IN PV MODULE MONITORING 2659

Fig. 14. Implemented PV module monitoring system based on the

parallel resonant coupling unit.
Fig. 13. Implemented PLC module based on parallel resonant coupling
unit.
TABLE I
EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS
the average value of the signal envelope, generates the average
voltage of the envelope that is to be used as the reference with Symbol Parameter Value
which the envelope will be compared. The decision circuit uses Pm a x Peak power of PV module 255 W
the envelope and its average to recover the data in the baseband. Vo c Open-circuit voltage of PV module 37.82 V
The flexibility and reliability of the communication system can Vm p Max power voltage of PV module 30.29 V
Isc Short circuit current of PV module 8.98 A
be improved by adopting the adaptive level decision circuit. Im p Max power current of PV module 8.42 A
P inv Rated output power of inverter 12 kW
N Number of PV modules 16
III. IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS OF PROPOSED PV MODULE
MONITORING SYSTEM
A. Developed PLC Module Based on Parallel Resonant
Coupling Unit
As is shown in Fig. 13, the developed PLC module based on
parallel resonant coupling unit, which is implemented on the 32-
bit MCU, is mainly composed of auxiliary power supply circuit,
modulation circuit, coupling circuit, and demodulation circuit.
The auxiliary power supply circuit providing power for other cir-
cuits drops down the high PV voltage to +12 V, −12 V, +5 V,
−5 V, and +3.3 V. The analog-to-digital converter (ADC) capa-
bility of the MCU is used to convert the measured PV module’s
characteristics, such as dc voltage, direct current, and tempera-
ture, to digital signals for transmission. The digital signals are
modulated into the high-frequency carrier signals by modulation Fig. 15. Experimental waveforms of modulation circuit.
circuit and injected into the dc power bus through the coupling
circuit. After being decoded by the demodulation circuit, the
high-frequency communication signals are restored as the data ulated and coupled to dc power line and then the coupled signal,
in the baseband. obtained by receiver of the SCM through a coupling transformer,
is demodulated and restored as the original data signal.
Fig. 15 shows experimental waveforms of modulation cir-
B. Field Test of the Proposed PV Module Monitoring cuit. The 200 kHz sinusoidal carrier is generated by filtering
System the PWM carrier produced from MCU. The digital baseband
The configuration of a field test for the proposed PV module signal shown in the figure is generated from the UART of MCU
monitoring system is shown in Fig. 14. The detailed parameters and amplified by the power amplifier. Fig. 15 also shows the
of the system are listed in Table I. The SCM measuring the modulated signal waveform based on the ASK digital modula-
corresponding PV module’s parameters is deployed at each PV tion scheme. The generated ASK signals are then amplified by
module. The DCU periodically aggregating the measured data the power amplifier and transferred to the dc power line by the
of each PV module is deployed beside the PV inverter. In order isolation transformer.
to verify the feasibility of the proposed PLC scheme, the pseudo- As shown in Fig. 16, the output signal waveforms of the
random code, which is generated by MCU of the DCU, is mod- coupling circuits under two different coupling methods are
2660 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 65, NO. 3, MARCH 2018
Fig. 16. Experimental waveforms of coupling circuit: (a) open-circuit
output signal waveform of the coupling circuit, (b) output signal waveform
of the coupling circuit based on the parallel resonant unit, and (c) output
signal waveform of the capacitive coupling circuit.
compared. The open-circuit output signal waveform of the cou-
pling circuit is shown in Fig. 16(a) as a reference. Fig. 16(b)
shows the output signal waveform of the coupling circuit based
on the parallel resonant unit. The parallel resonant coupling cir-
cuit’s output signal, which is injected into the power line, is
basically similar in amplitude with the open-circuit signal of
the coupling circuit. Fig. 16(c) is the output signal waveform of
the capacitive coupling circuit. By comparison with the signal
amplitude of the open circuit of the coupling circuit, the signal
attenuation of the capacitive coupling circuit is larger. Com-
pared with the capacitive coupling circuit, adopting the parallel
resonant coupling circuit can effectively decrease the load of the
Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms of demodulation circuit.
Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms of the communication signal: (a)
waveforms of the communication signal without adopting the adaptive
level decision circuit and (b) waveforms of the communication signal
when adopting the adaptive level decision circuit.
coupling circuit, reduce the signal attenuation, and improve the
efficiency of signal transmission.
The experimental waveforms of demodulation circuit are
shown in Fig. 17. The predetection signal is produced by fil-
tering and amplifying the signal received from the power line.
The detected signal waveform shown in Fig. 17 is the digital
baseband signal envelope. As is shown in Fig. 17, the demod-
ulated signal, which is digitized by the comparator, can be rec-
ognized by the MCU. In the field test, sixteen PLC modules can
communicate normally.
When the number of PV modules in the monitoring system
is increased from 16 to 20, the corresponding communication
signal waveforms are shown in Fig. 18. Fig. 18(a) shows the
waveforms of the communication signal without adopting the
et al.: RESEARCH ON POWER LINE COMMUNICATION BASED ON PARALLEL RESONANT COUPLING TECHNOLOGY IN PV MODULE MONITORING
Fig. 19. Relationship between BER and the number of PV modules.
adaptive level decision circuit. As the number of PV modules
increases, the amplitude of the received communication signal
becomes smaller. When the amplitude of the received signal
becomes smaller, the fixed decision level almost reaches the
peak of the signal envelope. The result is that errors occur in the
output of decision circuit and the data in the baseband cannot
be recovered. Fig. 18(b) shows the waveforms of the communi-
cation signal when adopting the adaptive level decision circuit.
It can be known from Fig. 18(b) that the adaptive level decision
circuit produces the average voltage of the envelope that is to be
used as the reference with which the envelope will be compared.
The output of the adaptive level decision circuit can effectively
recover the data in the baseband.
The bit error rate (BER) is a very important parameter to
evaluate the reliability of a communication system and can be
obtained as
Nerror
BER = × 100% (6)
Ntotal
Nerror and Ntotal are the number of error codes and the total
number of codes, respectively. Through a lot of experimental
exploration, the relationship between BER and the number of
PV modules is shown in Fig. 19. As shown in Fig. 19, the BER
becomes higher as the number of PV modules increases. The
BER is basically kept within the range of 1/10 000. In the further
study, in order to improve the reliability of communication, the
BER will be optimized.
Another important point of view is related to the economic
aspects of the proposed scheme. The ac impedance of a PV
module, which is measured by Wayne Kerr 65120B impedance
analyzer, is about 4 to 35 Ω within the frequency range from 100
to 1000 kHz. Owing to this, the transmitter of the conventional
capacitive coupling PLC scheme may be required to generate
a large amount of current in order to meet the PLC voltage
requirements [15]. However, the impedance of parallel resonant
coupling circuit can be about 500 Ω at resonant frequency in
this paper. Compared with the conventional capacitive coupling
PLC scheme, the proposed PLC scheme can save transmission
circuit cost about 20–30% because of the higher impedance of
parallel resonant coupling circuit. In addition, the total cost of
the designed PLC module is about 5 U.S. dollars and can be
optimized in further study.
2661
IV. CONCLUSION
Intelligent PV module monitoring can automatically locate
the position of panels and monitor the status of PV modules,
which is of great significance for PV plants operation and main-
tenance. In this paper aiming at the problems of existing PV
module monitoring system based on PLC technology, an intel-
ligent PV module monitoring system based on the parallel res-
onant coupling unit was proposed. A set of experimental tests
have been conducted on the proposed PV module monitoring
system, which is installed in a real PV system composed of 16
255 W PV modules and one PV inverter. By comparing the per-
formance of the proposed coupling circuit with the capacitive
coupling circuit of [15], the superiority of the proposed tech-
nique in improving the system efficiency and anti-interference
ability was confirmed. In addition, experimental results also
demonstrate that the flexibility and reliability of the commu-
nication system can be effectively improved by adopting the
proposed adaptive level decision circuit.
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Wang Mao (S’17) was born in Anhui, China,
in 1992. He received the B.S. degree in elec-
trical engineering from the School of Electrical
Engineering and Automation, Anhui University,
Hefei, China, in 2013. He is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree in electric engineering
and automation at Hefei University of Technol-
ogy, Hefei.
His current research interests include power
line communication technologies, the modeling
and control of power converters, and photo-
voltaic generation technologies.
Xing Zhang (M’13–SM’14) was born in
Shanghai, China, in 1963. He received the B.S.,
M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineer-
ing and automation from Hefei University of
Technology, Hefei, China, in 1984, 1990, and
2003, respectively.
Since 1984, he has been a Faculty Member in
the School of Electric Engineering and Automa-
tion, Hefei University of Technology, where he is
currently a Professor. He is also with the Pho-
tovoltaic Engineering Research Center of the
Ministry of Education. His main research interests include photovoltaic
generation technologies, wind power generation technologies, and dis-
tributed generation systems.
Renxian Cao was born in Zhejiang, China, in
1968. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees
in electrical engineering and automation from
Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China, in
1990 and 1993, respectively.
He is currently the General Manager of Sun-
grow Power Supply Co., Ltd., Hefei and a Pro-
fessor in the School of Electric Engineering
and Automation, Hefei University of Technology.
His main research interests include photovoltaic
generation technologies, wind power generation
technologies, and distributed generation system.
Fusheng Wang (M’13) was born in Anhui,
China, in 1976. He received the B.S. degree in
electric engineering and automation from Hefei
University of Technology, Hefei, China, in 1998
and the Ph.D. degree in nuclear science and en-
gineering from the Institute of Plasma Physics
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, in 2005.
In 2006, he joined the Faculty of the School of
Electric Engineering and Automation, Hefei Uni-
versity of Technology, where he is currently an
Associate Professor. His current research inter-
ests include control of multilevel converters and photovoltaic generation
technologies.
Tao Zhao (S’17) was born in Henan, China, in
1991. He received the B.S. degree in electrical
engineering and automation from Xi’an Techno-
logical University, Xi’an, China and the M.S. de-
gree in power electronics and power drives from
Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China, in
2014 and 2017, respectively. He is currently
working toward the Ph.D. degree in electrical en-
gineering at Hefei University of Technology.
His current research interests include the
modeling and control of power converters, and
multilevel converters.
Linchong Xu was born in Anhui, China, in 1983.
He received the B.S. degree in electronic in-
formation engineering from Anhui University of
Science & Technology, Huainan, China and the
M.S. degree in control science and engineering
from the University of Science and Technology
of China, Hefei, China, in 2006 and 2014, re-
spectively.
He is currently an Electrical Hardware Engi-
neer at Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd, Hefei.
His current research interests include wired and
wireless networks in the field of distributed generation systems.