A novel cross diagonal view configuration of a PV system under partial shading condition

• Published in: Solar energy Vol. 158; pp. 760 - 773
• Main Authors: John Bosco, M., Carolin Mabel, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Ltd 01.12.2017; Pergamon Press Inc
• Subjects: Configurations; Cross diagonal view; Diodes; Electric power generation; Electricity generation; Energy efficiency; Maximum power; Maximum power harvest; Partial shading; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; PV system configuration; Shading; Solar cells; Solar energy; Strings; Studies; Partial shading; PV system configuration; Cross diagonal view; Maximum power harvest
• ISSN: 0038-092X; 1471-1257
• DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2017.10.047

•A cross diagonal view matrix based PV module arrangement is proposed.•The proposed configuration harvests maximum power under partial shading condition.•The electrical circuit remains unchanged.•Global peak gets closer to the nominal operating point. The power generation by photovoltaic (PV) system gets affected by shading and physical location of the module. Hence, a PV system exhibits multiple peaks in the characteristics curves and does not always track the maximum power point (MPP). To harvest maximum power, a new configuration namely cross diagonal view (CDV) is proposed so that the shading effect is spread over the entire system. The physical location of the module in the conventional series parallel (SP) and total cross tied (TCT) configurations is altered by augmenting with the novel cross diagonal view configuration but following the same electrical circuit. The advantages is all strings contribute to total power generation, the global peak (GP) gets closer to the nominal operating point, the usage of blocking diodes is reduced and the hotspot problems are minimized. Performance investigations are carried out for different shading patterns with the conventional SP and TCT configuration, the recently developed sudoku (SDK) configuration and the proposed configuration. It is found that by using the proposed configuration augmented with TCT, the generated power is maximum, showing 23.97% increase, in comparison with the conventional configuration for the shading of case 3 pattern considered. The method proves to be more efficient to maximize the power under shaded conditions of the PV system.