Modularized Differential Power Processing Architecture Based on Switched Capacitor Converter to Virtually Unify Mismatched Photovoltaic Panel Characteristics

Photovoltaic (PV) strings consisting of multiple panels suffer from partial shading or characteristic mismatch issues, such as a significant reduction in power yield. Various kinds of differential power processing (DPP) converters have been developed to prevent the negative impacts of substring-level partial shading. For panel-level applications, however, conventional DPP converters face a variety of challenges, such as impaired extendibility and increased voltage stress of circuit elements. This paper proposes a switched capacitor converter (SCC)-based modular DPP architecture. Modules, each containing series-connected panels with a panel-level DPP converter, are connected through a switchless module-level DPP converter, and PV panel characteristics are unified at module- and panel-levels. The number of panels in each module is fixed, while the number of modules can be arbitrarily extended without redesigning DPP converters, hence offering good modularity. In addition, since voltage stresses of capacitors in the proposed architecture can be reduced lower than half the module voltages, the proposed DPP system realizes all-ceramic-capacitor SCC circuit by properly determining the module voltages. A prototype for eight panels, which were grouped into two modules, was built, and laboratory and field tests were performed. The experimental results demonstrated the enhanced power yield from the partially shaded PV string.