A Novel Approach to Improve Power Output of PV Array Under Different Shading Conditions

Improvement of energy efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) system is needed to fulfill the energy crises. The power generation of PV array decreases due to partial shading occurs on the PV array. In partial shading condition, the PV modules of the array receive different intensity of solar irradiation and hence mismatch losses occurs between the modules. Thus the power-voltage characteristics of PV arrays contain multiple local maxima and one of them is a global maximum power point (GMPP). This paper presents an novel approach to arrange the physical position of modules in Total Cross Tied (TCT) configuration, without changing the electrical connection of the modules in the array. In this approach, the arrangement of PV modules of TCT configuration is done in such a way that the shading effect is distributed over the entire array, and hence it reduces the multiple local maxima in power -voltage characteristics of the PV array. Thus the tracking of GMPP in the present approach is simpler. In this paper, the power generation of array with TCT and proposed configuration is compared with theoretical and MATLAB simulation results. It is investigated that the power generation of PV array with proposed configuration is enhanced under different shading patterns.