A non-puzzle based interconnection scheme for energy savings and income generation from partially shaded photovoltaic modules

ABSTRACT

There is a significant effect of partial shade on the generation of power from solar plants. Hence, this paper proposes a new simple reconfiguration technique called Sequential Arrangement Technique (SAT) to disperse the shade on Photo-Voltaic (PV) modules. This method facilitates the numbering of the PV modules, based on the shading pattern during the PV array installation. Furthermore, the PV modules irradiation is distributed column-wise by providing wiring similar to Total Cross Tied (TCT) connection to get minimum row current and enhanced maximum power of 12.31% compared to conventional TCT. The performance of SAT is validated through the analysis, MATLAB simulations, and experimentation under various shading patterns. Furthermore, the analysis has been extended with the energy savings and income generation on various reconfiguration methods under various partial shade conditions. The more energy savings and income generation compared to the existing reconfiguration methods show its adaptability in real-time implementation. The outcomes of the proposed research work are as follows: (i) less wiring line losses along with the less renumbered PV modules of around 39.5%, (ii) developing a simple non-puzzle-based reconfiguration technique to reduce the complexity in implementation, and (iii) improved efficiency with enhanced power generation. To show the effectiveness and usefulness of the SAT reconfiguration, a comparative assessment with the conventional puzzle-based methods is developed with various performance indices.

KEYWORDS:

• Partial shading on PV modules
• energy savings
• non-puzzle interconnection scheme
• income generation
• total cross tied
• sequential arrangement technique

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank DST, India for granting project titled “Design and Development of Solar Photo-Voltaic Powered Cold Storage System” - Initiative to Promote Habitat Energy Efficiency (I-PHEE), and National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India for providing facilities during experimentation and Dr. M. Subbiah, Professor (Rtd.), Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, Tamilnadu, India, for his suggestion in preparing this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).