Enhanced power generation of partial shaded photovoltaic fields by forecasting the interconnection of modules

• A novel method for connection of modules is proposed for PV arrays.
• It provides multiple solutions for reconfiguration.
• This method can be used for both fully and partially reconfigurable arrays.
• Four application examples included to justify the major findings.
• Design of large PV structures is easy without tedious mathematical formulation.

SPV (solar photovoltaic) systems are often partially shadowed by passing cloud, neighboring building, chimney, tree, telephone pole etc. As a result, their produced power is lower than the expected value despite their size. This reduction in produced power is dependent on area of PVs under shade, shade scenario, module interconnection styles and also on the connection of shaded and non-shaded modules. This paper presents a novel method to forecast the interconnection of modules in a TCT (total-cross-tied) connected PV (​photovoltaic) array. In this approach, the placement of shaded and non-shaded modules in array are done in such a way so as to distribute the shading effects evenly in each row thereby enhance the PV array power. The performance of this method is investigated for different shading patterns which are the approximations for the most common partial shading scenarios in PV fields and the results show that it can provide multiple solutions for reconfiguration of photovoltaic array to improve energy yield under partial shading conditions. In addition, the power–voltage characteristic curve of these reconfigurable PV arrays are much smoother than that of TCT (total-cross-tied) configured PV arrays and thus ease the work of MPP (maximum power point) techniques. Also this method can easily be implemented for the design of large photovoltaic structures without tedious mathematical formulation.