Electrical connectors are the blocks that connect solar panels together. Whenever a photovoltaic plant commences, the main discussion goes around on solar panels, inverters, charge controllers, etc. But the topic of connectors is usually hardly discussed. Connectors in a photovoltaic system can definitely contribute to improve the overall performance of the system, provided that importance is given while selecting the connectors. The electrical connectors used in photovoltaic systems can be connected in two possible ways. Connectors can be connected either in a pure-connection or in a cross-connection. Male and female connectors from the same brand results a pure-connection (P-C). Male and female connectors from two different brands results in a cross-connection (C-C). There have been discussions in photovoltaic, electrical connector markets and international solar events regarding the risks involved, losses and consequences due to a cross-connection. The main reason behind cross-connections is the unawareness of the installers in knowing the difference between a pure-connection and a cross-connection. Even though the installers are aware of this difference, they are not aware of the consequences of cross-connections. Multi-Contact, a leading electrical connector manufacturer of MC4 photovoltaic connectors affected by the counterfeit products of MC4, due to the sudden boom in the solar market during 2011-12. With the help of TÜV Rheinland, Multi-Contact conducted couple of tests namely temperature increase test and accelerated stress tests to understand the disadvantages of cross-connections. This thesis tried to replicate the tests performed by Multi-Contact in an attempt to understand the test results by using connectors that are used in the Swedish market. Performing temperature increase test and accelerated stress tests on most commonly used connectors in the Swedish market is the main aim of this thesis. The first test, gives an understanding of the temperature variations across various connector sets (four connector sets from various manufacturers used in this thesis) and the latter tests helps to understand the quality of the contact resistance of these connector sets. The four connector set manufacturers used in this test were Multi-Contact (MC), Weidmüller (WM), Blussun solar (BSS) and PBM. The quality of contact resistance of a connector is directly related to the quality of the connector set. During the 20 minutes of the temperature increase test, the connector set from WM performed better than its competitors in the P-C. Whereas, the MC-BSS connector set had performed well in the C-C. The connector type of male MC and female BSS showed its dominance throughout the test. Unfortunately, no conclusions were able to be drawn from this test results due to insufficient information about the test procedure. From the results of accelerated stress tests, the C-C set from MC outperformed its P-C counterpart. All ten connector sets used in this project passed the standard and qualified as connectors with good quality contact resistance. Therefore the best results out of only a P-C connector set does not seems to be completely true. With the standard used in this thesis, it is quite difficult to judge the quality of connectors. Rather than saying a P-C is superior and a C-C is inferior in terms of quality, there is a need to come up with a new method to evaluate the quality of connectors. Matching the connectors based on their tolerances could be a potential solution to the mismatching problem in connectors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:du-28838 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Tanguturi, Sai Kishan |
| Publisher | Högskolan Dalarna, Energiteknik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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