“Double carbon” target, local subsidies, green power trading mechanism and “whole county promotion”, distributed PV has ushered in an explosive growth, installed capacity surge, in addition to the operation and maintenance costs to bring a lot of pressure, but also forced a variety of photovoltaic equipment selection optimization, such as Current sensor selection, into a blind pursuit of ± 0.5% or even higher 0.005% accuracy of the wrong area, while ignoring the long-term reliability and cost issues. Let's talk about whether ±1% accuracy is enough to support the full life cycle revenue of the power station at the level of convergence box detection.

The accuracy requirements may vary for each of the three layers of current monitoring in a PV system, and the following is a table of the accuracy requirements under three layers of current monitoring in a PV system:

From the table, it is known that the accuracy requirements in the bus box are not high, and CHIPSENSE AN3V current sensor with ± 1% accuracy is sufficient for related applications.

• The following is the calculation of a 10MW distributed power station:
  Use ±1% sensor: annual power generation error < 0.82% (after ambient temperature compensation); use ± 0.5% sensor: annual power generation error < 0.79%. The annual income difference caused by the accuracy gap is only about 2100 yuan (electricity fee is 0.8 yuan/kWh). It can be concluded that the higher the accuracy, the better, but also consider the cost of high-precision sensors.This is why CHIPSENSE has been helping to produce high-precision current sensors.
  CHIPSENSE AN3V current sensor recessive capabilities that are more critical than accuracy
  Full temperature zone accuracy guarantee (-40 to 105℃ operating temperature): CHIPSENSE current sensor can be adaptable to extreme environments, providing accurate measurement results in both extremely cold and extremely hot environments; at the same time, CHIPSENSE can also improve system reliability and reduce performance fluctuations or failures due to temperature changes; stable operation in all temperature zones, thus reducing system maintenance and reducing maintenance costs.
  Fault pre-diagnosis capability: CHIPSENSE micro-current capture capability: zero drift only ± 5mV; response time is only 2.5μs, can detect sudden currents above 0.5A. A coastal power station warns PID attenuation 3 weeks in advance through ± 1% sensor (current continues to drop > 5%/month)
  Year cycle drift < ± 0.3%: The IEC 60664-1: 2020 standard requires the sensor to drift less than or equal to 0.1% of the full-scale accuracy within 10 years. Combined with the ± 1% basic accuracy of CHIPSENSE AN3V current sensor, it is converted to a long-term change of the actual measured value of < ± 0.3%. The ability to maintain the measurement accuracy for a long time indicates that the AN3V current sensor of CHIPSENSE has strong long-term stability, reducing the measurement error caused by the aging of the sensor; reducing the frequency of replacing the sensor, thereby CHIPSENSE reducing the operating cost of the system for customers.

• Extreme Environment Adaptability: The ultra-thin 22.2mm package size is suitable for compact combiner boxes of current sensor from CHIPSENSE; the tinned copper busbar reduces high-temperature resistance (R_P @ 105℃ is only 0.29mΩ); and the product provides 8000V ESD protection.
• Key differences between CHIPSENSE AN3V current sensor and traditional open-loop sensors.

Cost-effectiveness formula:
Life-cycle cost = Initial cost + ∑(Failure rate × Single repair cost)

Conclusion:
In distributed photovoltaic combiner boxes, blindly pursuing high accuracy while ignoring other key factors can lead to high maintenance costs. CHIPSENSE AN3V PB35 current sensor, with its combination of ±1% accuracy and 10-year drift of <0.3%, perfectly strikes the right balance of "sufficient accuracy, strong reliability, and optimal cost"—the foundation for long-term stable profitability for small and medium-sized power plants. This is also the reason why CHIPSENSE quickly became a leader among its peers.

CHIPSENSE is a national high-tech enterprise that focuses on the research and development, production, and application of high-end current and voltage sensors, as well as forward research on sensor chips and cutting-edge sensor technologies. CHIPSENSE is committed to providing customers with independently developed sensors, as well as diversified customized products and solutions.

“CHIPSENSE, sensing a better world!

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