Performance Analysis of Different PV Array Configurations under Partial Shading Condition

Abstract

Most of the energy used today comes from fossil fuels. The constant exploitation of fossil fuels creates an adverse effect on the environment. With the trend of an increase in energy demand in recent years, there is a widespread utility of sustainable energy sources to meet the energy demands. So, the use of sustainable energy sources is the need of the hour. Among the sustainable energy sources, solar energy is the prominent non-polluting energy that can be used for the cause. Photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules are being used to obtain electricity from solar energy. For high power applications, PV arrays are used in place of PV modules. But PV arrays suffer from Partial shading (PS) due to the presence of building shade, nearby trees, birds' droppings, electric poles, etc. PS affects the PV modules negatively which reduces the overall efficiency of the array. To enhance the PV array efficiency, reconfiguration techniques are being widely used. In this paper, five different array configurations such as Series (S), Series-Parallel (SP), Total Cross Tied (TCT), Bridge Link (BL) and Honeycomb (HC) are considered for analysis. Six cases of shading conditions are considered for investigation using a 5×5 PV array. For PV array modelling KC200GT PV module parameters have been used and simulated in MATLAB/Simulink software. The performance of PV array has been analysed considering maximum power, shading loss (SL), mismatch loss (ML) and fill factor (FF).