Adam Rosiński

The intensive development of photovoltaic (PV) micro-systems contributes to increased interest in energy efficiency and diagnosing the condition of such solutions. Optimizing system energy efficiency and servicing costs are particularly noteworthy among the numerous issues associated with this topic. This research paper addresses the easy and reliable diagnosis of PV system malfunctions. It discusses the original PV system energy efficiency simulation model with proprietary methods for determining total solar irradiance on the plane of cells installed at any inclination angle and azimuth, as well as PV cell temperature and efficiency as a function of solar irradiance. Based on this simulation model, the authors developed procedures for the remote diagnosis of PV micro-systems. Verification tests covered two independent PV systems over the period from April 2022 to May 2023. The obtained results confirm the high credibility level of both the adopted energy efficiency simulation model and the proposed method for diagnosing PV system functional status.

An education system can be considered as an anthropotechnical system consisting of an education subject (e.g., trainee, operator), examiner (teacher), system decision maker (e.g., teaching module coordinator), and the environment (e.g., administrative, social, IT). The outcomes of this system are the knowledge and skills acquired by a trained student. The educational effect is usually diagnosed in the form of an exam or test. The study addresses the issue related to the credibility of applied assessment methods, knowledge qualification levels, and assessment errors. The analysis is conducted in accordance with the principles applied in statistical quality control when studying product population defectiveness. Using known methods for testing product defectiveness, the authors characterized the trainee educational effect (i.e., his/her knowledge and skill level) in a technical manner. The probability of an event wherein the examined person demonstrating a specific knowledge level achieves an adequate grade, has been adopted as the reliability measure. The conducted calculations provided graphs of the reliability functions involving the grades received within the “traditional” examination and testing process. The authors suggested an application that tests a SCADA system user, based on tools known to the trainee. The application was developed using the SCADA suite used as a visualization element in distributed control systems. This application enables the automation of the operator diagnosis process.