Power Enhancement by Hybrid BIPV Arrays with Fewer Peaks and Reduced Mismatch Losses under Partial Shading

Partial shading is a major obstacle significantly reducing the maximum power output and efficiency of large building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) or solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays. The main objective of this research paper is to perform a comprehensive analysis of existing hybrid solar PV array configurations with the proposed hybrid BIPV array configuration under four different cases of partial shading in the MATLAB-Simulink platform. The existing hybrid array configurations used for analysis are Series-Parallel Total-Cross-Tied (SP-TCT), Bridge-Linked TCT (BL-TCT), Honey-Combed TCT (HC-TCT), and BL-HC. The hybrid BIPV array configuration proposed in this research paper is Sandwich Series-Parallel Total-Cross-Tied (S-SP-TCT). The performance of five different existing and proposed 8 × 6 hybrid BIPV array configurations are evaluated in terms of global maximum power point (GMPP), voltage & current at GMPP, open-circuit (OC) voltage, short-circuit (SC) current, the number of power peaks, shading loss (SL), mismatch loss (ML), fill factor (FF) and efficiency (η). The performance assessment reveals that the proposed S-SP-TCT configuration improves GMPP by 6.75 %, reduces ML by 5.20 %, and improves FF & η by 4.025 % and 0.532 %, respectively. The number of generated power peaks is reduced in the proposed S-SP-TCT array in extreme cases of partial shading.