International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE) ISSN: 2277-3878, Volume-8 Issue-3, September 2019 6748 Published By: Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering & Sciences Publication Retrieval Number: B1914078219/19©BEIESP DOI:10.35940/ijrte.B1914.098319 Abstract: Photovoltaic plants and off-grid connections have been a solution for rural and remote areas in the past few years. It is, however, requiring a group of technicians to maintain the efficiency of the PV panels in a regular based. PV panels also suffer a steady reduction in their effectiveness due to the need for cleaning and environmental aspects. The project monitors the output of individual PV connected in the array and advises timely maintenance. The technology of wireless sensor networks consists of a small device. Efficiency trends are to be utilised to activate the cleaning robot to travels the given path and cleans the suspected PV and then moves to the next one as required. Index Terms: Photovoltaic plants; Cleaning System; Zigbee; I. INTRODUCTION PV panels often work at a low efficiency when installed in a remote area. The efficiency reduction is mainly due to the need for regular cleaning as the panels are directly exposed by air pollution. [1] and [2]. The main challenge on the efficiency control is the fact that PV panels often work in collaboration. And hence it would be difficult to evaluate the efficiency of each panel. Monitoring the PV system has been implemented by mean of the wireless and wired network in several projects. Here a flexible wireless network has been utilised to share the information and make the required correcting decisions. If an array determined to have a low output compared to the production collected from other PV panels, a correcting action could be taken in place. A portable robot is dedicated to performing the cleaning actions and then return to the usual schedule as required. II. MONITORING SYSTEM Monitoring production of PV panels facilitates the diagnosis of panel’s operation in a solar farm or an array. Several phenomena may cause a reduction in energy generation of photovoltaic systems, including dust accumulation and dirt and physical damages. The total maximum producible energy in a solar panel system is a function of the overall healthy operation of individual solar panels. Malfunctioning process of a single panel reduces the functionality of the solar array depending on the number of panels installed in the array. Negligence of the lowering of generation causes a more significant energy reduction due to more panels would be expected to have reduced functionality due to the environmental difficulties and aging. Therefore, monitoring each PV panel may contribute to maintaining the power produced from that PV panel and minimise problems on the PV panel array by monitoring the operation of each PV panel. Several works implemented monitoring systems for Photovoltaic panels. FSK network has been utilised in [3] to monitor individual panels at a remote location. Wifi communication has been employed in [4] and [5] to determine the efficiency using remote terminal units. Wired network with the internet connection for panels is implemented in [7] and [7]. The monitoring system being used here is based on the Zigbee protocol to take advantage of the network flexibility and the energy consumption of the technology. A. Overview of the monitoring and signalling system In order to monitor the quantified functionality of PV panels, a monitoring module is employed to measure the energy production and signal irregularities from each panel. Figure 1 illustrated the employment of the monitoring module for two PV panels. Fig. 1 Schematic of the monitoring system PV panels are arranged in an array and either connected in series to increase the generated voltage or in parallel to increase the generated current. Figure 2 demonstrates the series and parallel connections of PV panels in the array. In parallel string-connected layout, the current of each PV panel is the same as the series additive, and the voltage remains the same. If each PV panel in Figure 2 has an output of 18 volts and is 1A and the maximum output of the solar panel would be 4A, and the voltage would remain at 18V. The monitoring module should be appropriately placed to distinguish the current and Photovoltaic Plants Monitoring And Cleaning System A. Gheitasi, A. Almaliky, N. Albaqawi