Rearrangement of the PV Array to Reduce the Effect of Partial Shading Using Meta-Heuristic Techniques

Abstract

Non-uniform illumination decreases the efficiency of the photovoltaic (PV) array by reducing the current through the entire string, creating a hot spot in the PV module, and producing multiple peaks in the power-voltage characteristic which results in decreased output power through the PV array. So, it becomes necessary to reduce these effects due to uneven illumination. Many techniques are used for mitigating this effect and one of them is the rearrangement of the PV array. This helps in dispersing the shade which increases the overall power of the PV system. In this paper, two meta-heuristic optimization techniques namely genetic algorithm (GA) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are used for rearranging the PV array. The connections considered for the analysis of these techniques are TCT, BL-TCT, and HC-TCT. The result shows that rearrangement obtain through PSO when applied to TCT gives better results followed by HC-TCT when compared with the GA technique.