Minimising the power loss of solar photo voltaic array through efficient reconfiguration of panels

Abstract

The panels in the solar photo-voltaic array receive different levels of irradiation under shading conditions. This degrades the desired output power and results in multiple peaks within the voltage-power characteristics because of mismatch in row currents. Consequently, tracking of the global maximum power point seeks more complex algorithms. In order to mitigate the effects of shading, this work presents a novel reconfiguration technique that relocates the panels of conventional TCT configuration using TomTom puzzle pattern. In the proposed work, physical locations of shaded and unshaded panels are moved without altering the electrical circuitry. The proposed TomTom reconfiguration dilutes the concentrated shade, minimises the mismatch of row currents and yields maximum output power with less number of peaks in voltage-power characteristics. In addition to that, the behaviour of solar photo-voltaic array under moving shading conditions is also evaluated to highlight the potential of the proposed reconfiguration scheme.