Performance improvement of solar PV array topologies during various partial shading conditions

Abstract

The output power produced by solar Photovoltaic (PV) array is reduced drastically by partial shading effect. Various array formation and reconfiguration techniques were introduced by many researchers to mitigate partial shading effects in PV array. This paper proposes new PV Array Topologies (PVATs) to improve the performance during partial shading conditions (PSCs). Totally, eight shading patterns are considered in the analysis for seven types of array configurations. Based on the existing array configurations, six novel PVATs are proposed to address the partial shading effect. A 4 × 4, 4 kW solar PV array which consists of sixteen panel of each 250 W rating is considered in this paper. The proposed PVATs are simulated in MATLAB/Simulink® to assess the performance. The results obtained from the simulation are compared with the conventional PVATs and suitable topologies which give best performance during various PSCs are identified. The result comparison shows that the modified total cross-tied (TCT) configuration performs well to extract more power in most of the PSCs. For the Short and Wide PSC, the proposed TCT improves the output power of PVAT by 105% compared to the existing TCT topology. The proposed method is also validated experimentally using 2 × 2 TCT PV array topology and the output waveforms are presented in this paper. This research would be helpful for the PV power plant installers to identify a suitable array configuration.