Reliability assessment of photovoltaic power systems: Review of current status and future perspectives

Quantitative reliability assessment of photovoltaic (PV) power system is an indispensable technology to assure reliable and utility-friendly integration of PV generation. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art technologies for evaluating the reliability of large-scale PV systems and the effect of PV interconnection on the reliability of local distribution system. The discussions are extended to emerging research topics including time varying and ambient-condition-dependent failure rates of critical PV system components, accurate operating models of PV generators in both interconnected and islanded modes, and the reliability evaluation of active distribution networks with PV penetration and transmission level Giga-PV system. A vision for the future research is presented, with a focus on the cyber-physical perspective of the PV reliability, modeling of PV voltage control scheme for reliability assessment, reliability assessment for PV systems under extreme events and PV reliability assessment considering cybersecurity.