Improvement in Energy Harvest of Solar Photovoltaic Systems under Partial Shaded Conditions

Abstract:

Partial shading is the major contributing factor for reduced energy harvest in building integrated or rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems. The architecture of the PV array is altered dynamically in accordance with shade intensity to alleviate the impact of partial shading. However, this technique demands more number of sensors, switches and a sophisticated control algorithm. In small urban residential installations, the shade is often caused by trees and structures in the same or nearby buildings and is inevitable due to space limitations. The shape and intensity of the shade does not vary rapidly in these cases and hence dynamic reconfiguration is not necessary. The paper addresses the issue by proposing a simple tailored architecture to enhance the output under shaded conditions without using additional sensors and switches. The location of the panels in an array is predetermined in the proposed work in such a way that the shade is evenly distributed all over the array. This reduces the mismatch losses and enhances the output. For utility purposes, asymmetric multilevel inverter controlled by FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) is employed and the results are presented.

• Periodical: Applied Mechanics and Materials (Volume 787)
• Pages: 859-863
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.787.859
• Online since: August 2015
• Authors: S. Malathy*, R. Ramaprabha
• Keywords: Array Configuration, Mismatch, Partial Shading, Photovoltaics, Reconfiguration

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