Novel configurations for photovoltaic farms to reduce partial shading losses

Abstract

Partial shading is the condition of having different insolation levels at different parts of a photovoltaic structure. This structure can be a module, array or farm. The difference in insolation levels causes miss-match in the elements of the photovoltaic structure. This miss-match has undesirable effects such as reduction in generated power from the elements of the structure and hot spots inside the structure. The severity of these effects can be considerably reduced by reconnecting the structure in such a way that miss-match is reduced. This paper proposes novel configurations for modules inside farms, that result in considerable reduction in partial shading losses. Also this paper introduces a novel mathematical formulation for insolation level miss-match. This formula can be used for comparative evaluation of different photovoltaic configurations. The improvement over the existing photovoltaic configurations has been demonstrated by simulation results.