Reliability Evaluation for Photovoltaic Power Station based Multi-state Models of Photovoltaic Arrays

As the scale of photovoltaic power stations continues to expand, the number of internal elements has increased, and the series of parallel structures between elements has become more complex. The reliability of photovoltaic power stations has become an issue that cannot be ignored. However, the current reliability assessment of photovoltaic stations mostly focuses on analyzing element faults, lacking the division of element operating states. Therefore, this paper proposes a reliability evaluation method for photovoltaic power station based multi-state models of photovoltaic arrays (PAs). Firstly, the PAs which are the key elements of photovoltaic power stations are divided into different states. Secondly, a multi-state reliability model of PA is built based on the Markov process. Then the reliability indexes of PA are proposed from both time and overall perspectives. Finally, the reliability evaluation results under different states are analyzed in the case study.