Mismatch losses in PV power generators caused by partial shading due to clouds

Abstract

Clouds cause spatial and temporal variability of solar radiation which is the main cause of fluctuating photovoltaic power fed into the grid. TUT solar PV power station research plant has been designed to enable systematic and thorough analysis of the dynamic phenomena in energy conversion processes of grid-connected solar PV power systems. Its climatic and electric measuring systems comprise an accurate weather station as well as an extensive mesh of solar radiation and module temperature measurements located through the PV facility. In this paper, we propose a method to generate a spatial irradiance map from an array of solar radiation measurements. Additionally, we utilize it as a tool to evaluate the mismatch losses in the operation of different PV generators due to partial shading caused by moving clouds.