Control and communication for smart photovoltaic arraysControl and communication for smart photovoltaic arrays Πλήρης Δημοσίευση σε Συνέδριο Conference Full Paper 2024-09-192022enDecarbonization of energy generation is required to address the urgent need to combat climate change and meet the Paris Agreement targets. Photovoltaic Systems (PVS) are a major contributor to this solution, and they are expected to grow significantly faster than any other renewable-energy technology in the coming years due to their appealing features. This paper discusses the development of a two-way communication protocol between two transceivers and a custom-designed communication board installed on each PV array. With this configuration, it is possible to transmit the measurements of each PV cell in the array to a data recording and monitoring service. Additionally, the application can customize the operation of the strings that make up the array, by broadcasting special commands to them. A prototype experimental setup was constructed in order to test the communication between the PV array communication board and the uplink/downlink transceivers. The experimental results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed communication protocol between the Electronics Interface System (EIS) and the Smart PV array since the communication protocol meets the specification for transmitting the information from 1000 smart PV cells within one minute, as well as the strict timing requirements by the protocol for transmitting the parameters to the PV strings.The authors acknowledge support of this work by the project "SmartPV: Development of a Smart Photovoltaic Cells System" (project code: T1EDK-01485) which is implemented under the call “Research - Create – Innovate”, funded by the Operational Program "Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation" and co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/139–14426th Pan-Hellenic Conference on InformaticsProceedings of the 26th Pan-Hellenic Conference on InformaticsVoutsinas_et_al_PCI 2022.pdfChania [Greece]Library of TUC2024-09-19application/pdf2.6 MBfree Voutsinas Stylianos Mandourarakis Ioannis Μανδουραρακης Ιωαννης Koutroulis Eftychios Κουτρουλης Ευτυχιος Karolidis Dimitrios Voyiatzis Ioannis Samarakou Maria Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Power line communication Communication protocols PCB Design Smart Grid Photovoltaics