Low cost power recovery system for PV plant under partial shading condition

The spread of photovoltaic systems for clean energy improves the industrial and private sector. Today, thanks to the cost reduction, photovoltaic systems are becoming widespread. However, producing the maximum possible power with changing irradiation is a problem, mostly in the partial shading condition. The aim of this work is to create a low-cost power recovery system for photovoltaic arrays under partial shading condition using an MPPT search algorithm and balancing for the photovoltaic system using the "Variable Interleaving DC-DC Converter" (VICDC). Indeed, due the partial shading which affects and lowers the performance of the photovoltaic system, the output power is moved to load decreases. Model of a series of photovoltaic panels under partial shading conditions was implemented on the SIMULINK environment to study its behaviour. The I-V and P-V characteristics of the simulated system under partial shading conditions are then compared with those of regular operation. As a second step in the simulation, a boost converter connected to each panel of the same string has been inserted, as required by the VICDC technique. The results showed an increase in performance both in efficiency and on the power of the PV system: additionally, the benefits from an economic, environmental and social point of view, are quantified. Finally, starting from the data obtained by the simulations, the design of a low cost system for partial shading is proposed. The device, mounted on each panel, uses wireless protocol to communicate with a datalogger whose task is the management and storage of data. In particular, the proposed device monitors the presence of partial shading conditions on the panels for the possible activation of the VICDC compensation system. The results showed how the use of the proposed system in partial shading conditions increases the maximum power point by 10.91%.