Power and mismatch losses mitigation by a fixed electrical reconfiguration technique for partially shaded photovoltaic arrays

Partial shading is the most commonly occurring scenario among the modules of the photovoltaic arrays invoking power and mismatch losses. To attenuate these losses, various interconnection topologies for partial shading mitigation have been proposed in the literatures. This paper proposes a fixed electrical reconfiguration technique for the modules that facilitates distribution of the effect of shading in the entire array thereby reducing the losses caused by partial shading. The technique proceeds with renumbering of the modules according to the proposed algorithm followed by electrical rewiring. The entire study has been accomplished by using MATLAB/Simulink environment and field experiment for the arrays of different sizes. The validity of the proposed technique has been critically evaluated using various artificially created shadings and compared with the hitherto known conventional and hybrid topologies. The response of the array having various topologies for every shade condition has been analysed using the characteristics curves and various performance parameters. From the study, it has been found that the proposed technique excels in performance in terms of reducing the number of peaks in the characteristics curves and maximizing power generation during all shade scenarios as compared to other topologies.