Modeling the Availability and Reliability of a Solar Photovoltaic System and Evaluating Using the Gumbel-Hougaard Family Copula

Abstract

This work provides models and simulation of a stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) device with a battery bank. The key goal was to create a library of basic mathematical models for each component of a stand-alone PV device, including solar cells, batteries, controllers, inverters, and loads. Copula, modeling software with a graphical interface for constructing models as modular block diagrams, is used to analyze availability, durability, mean time to failure (MTTF), and cost benefits. This study addresses the evaluation of component faults of the PV simulation. The objective of this paper is to obtain an optimal sizing of the PV system from the economical point of view, by imposing some constraints related to the desired reliability of the system. This is to guarantee a desired reliability in the continuity of the supply in the design of PV generation system. The result was numerically analyzed to extract relevant conclusions about the design process of PV systems, which reveals that Subsystem A (modules panels) has maximum effect on the availability of the complete system. In addition, the failure rate also has maximum effect on availability of complete system. Other subsystems are almost equally effective. Thus, we can make an inference that we should take the most care of these subsystems in order to improve the overall availability of the system.