Improving performance of photovoltaic panel by reconfigurability in partial shading condition

Abstract

A photovoltaic (PV) panel operating in partial shading condition results in lowering its power efficiency. In a worst-case scenario, it can create a hotspot that can eventually cause a fire hazard. To address this issue, bypass diodes are connected across a group of PV cells having series-parallel (SP) configuration. Owing to the placement bypass diodes in the PV panel, it can circumvent unshaded PV cells. Hence, topologies such as total cross-tied (TCT), bridge link (BL), and honeycomb (HC) for PV panels are proposed besides SP to reduce the effect of partial shading. Each configuration demonstrated advantages over SP topology. However, many of these configurations lack a mechanism to isolate PV cells that are affected due to the hotspot. Recently developed complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-embedded PV panel has been shown to offer many other benefits besides effectively dealing with shading conditions. We are comparing the performance of CMOS-embedded PV panel under various partial shading conditions with PV panel with fixed configuration topologies, such as SP, TCT, BL, and HC. SPICE-based equivalent PV modeling technique is used in this research to compare the maximum power generated in different topologies under changing partial shading conditions. Results show that CMOS-embedded PV panels are more efficient in coping with partial shading conditions compared to any other contemporary fixed topologies.