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Commissioning and troubleshooting: the checklist and the fault

Solar PV physics · Advanced · about 25 minutes · part of Solar PV Systems

Commissioning is the day the installer proves the system: polarity at every string before anything is connected, Voc and Isc per string against the datasheet, every fuse and breaker in and sized, every disconnect labelled, the grounding checked, and then the system run through a day and a night. The lab does it with the 🛡 Safety check and the ⏱ Test run, and issues the certificate only when both pass. Troubleshooting is the same skills in reverse: a reading that is off by exactly one string, one module, one fuse.

Commissioning and troubleshooting: the checklist and the fault: the circuit on the simulator's bench

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How it works

This is the studio’s design on the bench. Safety check: 14 passed, 0 warnings, 0 fails. Test runs passed: none yet of the three the certificate needs (a clear day, a cold morning, the night).

Open ⏱ Test run, run those three, then open the commissioning report. Then use Inject a fault…: pick one, read the panel readings and the IV curve card, name it, reveal.

Try it on the bench

  1. Run the three test runs and open the commissioning report: COMMISSIONED appears only with all of them and zero fails.
  2. Inject “open string” and look at the array current before you reveal.
  3. Try the fault of the day three times; the transcript keeps your score.

Parts on the bench

In the course

Solar PV Systems, module “12 · Commissioning and troubleshooting”.

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