Power Generation Improvement in Partially Shaded Series-Parallel PV Arrays through Junction Wires

In this paper, the effect of partial shading in the most hitherto known and widely applied PV array configuration has been studied. Also, an approach of adding additional wires to the junctions of series-parallel modules for losses reduction due to shading is proposed and validated using various shading scenarios. The additional wires in the module junctions allow the flowing of higher current through additional paths avoiding the bypass diodes activation. The complete study is conducted in the simulation for a 6x5 array and both the connection type i.e. simple series-parallel and series-parallel with junction wires are tested under six partial shading scenarios using power generation, mismatch and power losses, efficiency and power-voltage characteristics curves. From the conducted study, it has been found that the array with junction wires is capable of improving the PV array generation capacity under shading and can be applied to arbitrary sized arrays with very less complexity and cost.