A Vine-Copula Method for Outlier Identification in Photovoltaic Arrays

Abstract

To improve the operational efficiency and reliability of photovoltaic power stations, this paper introduces a novel approach to detect outliers in photovoltaic arrays using a Vine-Copula method. The procedure is divided into two distinct phases. Initially, it identifies deviations in the direct current (DC) component of the photovoltaic (PV) system. The following phase extends this by pinpointing irregularities in the DC voltage of the array. To model the interconnection between the PV current, irradiance, and temperature, the Vine-Copula is employed in this process. The optimisation of this function is based on the Akaike information criterion. Subsequently, a conditional probability model for the PV current is developed along with a formula to determine the quantile of this probability. This interval is then employed as the primary metric for detecting and eliminating current deviations. After refining the current data, a similar approach is taken to address voltage irregularities. The results of the simulation tests indicate that this proposed method is more effective, showing lower error rates and higher accuracy in detecting outliers, compared to other methods.