Abstract: Photovoltaic power plants have large areas, many components, scattered inverters and combiner boxes, and are exposed to the outdoor environment for a long time. Digital lightning protection monitoring can record lightning surge events, SPD status, grounding status and equipment alarms, helping power stations move from passive inspection to risk warning.
The difficulty of lightning protection in photovoltaic power stations lies not in the complexity of individual equipment, but in the large range, multiple loops, and scattered points. Component arrays, combiner boxes, inverters, box-type transformers, grid-connected cabinets and communication monitoring systems may all become paths of surge impact.
If we still only rely on regular inspections and post-mortem inspections, many lightning strikes and surge events will be missed. When the equipment becomes abnormal, it will be difficult to restore the process.
1. Why are photovoltaic power stations prone to blind spots?
Photovoltaic power plants are outdoors for a long time. The DC side lines are long and widely distributed. The AC side equipment is of high value. The communication monitoring system is also related to remote operation and maintenance. Lightning strikes and induced surges can affect multiple levels.
It is difficult for manual inspection to cover all points and all thunderstorm periods. After many impact events, obvious faults will not be immediately displayed on site, but they may have affected SPD life and equipment reliability.
2. Which locations require key monitoring?
Photovoltaic digital lightning protection should focus on the component array area, combiner box, inverter, box transformer, grid cabinet and communication system. Risk objects in different locations are different, and monitoring strategies should also be different.
The array area is more concerned about lightning intrusion and grounding paths, the inverters and grid-connected cabinets are more concerned about SPD and power systems, and the communication system needs to prevent the impact of signal link surges.
3. Why do we need to create files in partitions?
The entire site has only one status, making it difficult to guide operation and maintenance. Zone archiving can help determine which areas are frequently struck by lightning, which types of equipment SPD degrade faster, and which grounding grid status fluctuates more.
This can change the operation and maintenance from "inspection of the whole site" to "prioritization of high-risk areas".
4. How digital lightning protection improves photovoltaic operation and maintenance efficiency
By correlating lightning strike events, SPD status, grounding trends and equipment alarms, the platform can rank sites or areas for risk.
Operation and maintenance personnel do not need to blindly inspect, but instead prioritize high-risk points based on data to reduce downtime and repeated inspections.
5. How does micro-IoT understand photovoltaic digital lightning protection?
Micro-IoT believes that digital lightning protection in photovoltaic scenarios should adopt partitioning, layering, and remote status monitoring ideas. The FEXLINK system needs to incorporate lightning strike events, protection status, grounding paths and equipment alarms into the same site file.
Photovoltaic lightning protection does not only protect a certain inverter, but protects the long-term reliable operation of a set of distributed assets.
Conclusion: Photovoltaic lightning protection must move from the concept of the whole site to partition management
The larger the photovoltaic power plant, the more clearly it needs to know where the risks occur, what they affect, and whether maintenance is needed. Digital lightning protection allows the lightning strike and surge risks of photovoltaic power stations to be identified in advance from post-investigation.
FEXLINK technology will continue to share content related to intelligent lightning protection, early warning of electrical safety, digital power distribution, energy supervision and industrial Internet of Things.
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