A new contour balancing rearrangement technique to enhance the solar PV array power under a realistic partial shading condition

Abstract

Under partial shading conditions, the solar photovoltaic (PV) array receives an irregular pattern of solar light intensity which results in the creation of multiple peaks in the power vs voltage (P-V) and current vs voltage (I-V) plot and ultimately leads to hot spots creation and reduced power generation. Therefore, in this paper, redistribution of the shadow effect is assessed using a newly proposed reconfiguration method for the PV array called Contour Balancing Rearrangement (CBR) method. The proposed CBR method is based on the “Smash n′ Throw” approach which is applied to reconfigure the total-cross-tied (TCT) topology of the PV array that redistributes the shading pattern in such a way that the average irradiance of each row is almost the same. Further, a novel pragmatic dynamic cloud model is formulated to realize the partial shading condition as in realistic form at a particular location of the earth’s surface. For a more realistic analysis, the movement and acceleration of moving clouds are taken into account along with the coordinates of the place of interest for more accurate values of solar irradiation. Furthermore, different comparative studies are also carried out among the proposed and existing methods of various PV array reconfiguration methods to show the efficacy.