Next Generation Solar Photovoltaic Monitoring Systems: A Scoping Review on Techniques, Technologies, Usability and Security Issues

Abstract

The global transition toward renewable energy has positioned solar photovoltaic (PV) systems as a cornerstone of sustainable power generation. This transition is creating an urgent need for a robust and intelligent monitoring solutions. This scoping review systematically examines peer-reviewed studies published between 2020 and 2025, employing the PRISMA-ScR framework to ensure a transparent and structured process of identifying, screening, and synthesizing relevant literature. The analysis highlights progress across four key dimensions. Techniques such as machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), signal processing, and statistical modelling demonstrate high accuracy in fault detection, predictive maintenance, and performance forecasting. Technologies including Internet of Things (IoT), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), edge computing, and blockchain enable real-time monitoring, remote automation, and secure data handling. Usability considerations such as interface design, scalability, costeffectiveness, and responsiveness remain underexplored, with few systems developed through user-centered approaches. Security emerges as the weakest area, with most systems offering little protection against critical threats such as false data injection, spoofing, or unauthorized access. The review identified six persistent research gaps; inadequate security frameworks, insufficient user-centered design, scalability versus cost trade-offs, lack of standardization, limited intelligent automation, and underutilized prescriptive analytics. These gaps highlight the need for integrated approaches that go beyond technical performance improvement to ensure resilience, affordability, and user adoption. By addressing these challenges, next-generation PV monitoring systems can become more secure, user-centric, scalable, and capable of autonomous operation and optimization, thereby enhancing the reliability, affordability, and long-term sustainability of global solar energy infrastructures.