Power Enhancement of Solar PV Arrays Under Partial Shading Conditions with Reconfiguration Methods

Abstract

The output power of solar photovoltaic modules at uniform irradiance are more as compared to non-uniform irradiance due to partial shading caused by passing clouds, the shadow of nearby buildings, dust etc,. The effect of partial shading, reduces the performance of PV system by minimizing output power and also its creates hotspots in the shaded PV modules that can damage the PV cells in solar PV modules connected in that PV array. To enhance the maximum output power of PV arrays under different partial shading cases with reconfiguration methods by interconnection of PV modules in different topologies, these are solar PV configurations or topologies. The main objective of this paper is modeling of different 4x4 size solar PV array topologies mainly Total-Cross-Tied, Series-Parallel, Honey-Comb and Bridge-Linked types under different partial shading cases and discuss the power loss analysis of these PV topologies. For this analysis, total 12 shading cases are considered and compare the power loss with one unshaded case. The parameters of LG Electronics LG215P1W PV module are considered for modeling and simulation of different types of topologies for a 4x4 size PV array in MATLAB/Simulink. Keywords- Solar PV output power, Power enhancement, solar Irradiances, PV modules, PV array configurations, Partial shading effect, power losses.