A comprehensive investigation of a solar array with wire length under partial shading conditions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Partial shading condition (PSC) leads to mismatch losses and multiple peaks on the output curves. Several static-based reconfigurations like total cross-tied (TCT), skyscraper reconfiguration (SSR), and odd-even reconfiguration (OER) were reported to address these issues. But, less shade dispersion and more wiring losses occur in these arrays. This work focuses on both power improvement and wire length reduction of solar arrays under PSC. Based on the reduced wire length to more than 50% for SSR over OER, a novel enhanced skyscraper reconfiguration (ESR) is proposed in this work. ESR is cheaper by 169.13 INR and 1699.07 INR as compared to SSR and OER respectively. Further, the performance of the novel ESR is compared by obtaining several parameters like fill factor (FF), efficiency (Ƞ), global power (GP), execution ratio (ER), current loss (IL), and mismatch loss (ML) with the existing SSR and OER. It is observed that the Ƞ is improved by 4% and 13.05% and GP is maximized by 3.74W and 4.48W for the novel-proposed ESR over SSR and OER, which is experimentally verified under regional and corner shadings respectively. Overall, the novel-proposed ESR confirms its supremacy over other considered models in this study.