ABSTRACT
48The world has found the solution to the problem of finding a trade-off between the ever-increasing demand of energy and greenhouse gas emission thereof, in photovoltaic (PV) technology. PV technology has alleviated a plethora of issues associated with conventional fossil fuel-based energy generation and, hence, presently global cumulative PV installed capacity has increased to over 650 GW. However, it has several concomitant technological challenges associated with it as well, which need to be addressed for its effective utilization and reliable operation, such as partial shading condition (PSC). PSC does not only cause mismatch power loss and thereby reduce the peak power output, it also generates hotspot, which eventually causes irreversible damage to the PV cells in most of the cases. In the present work, comparative performance of different PV array topologies (series-parallel, bridge-link, and total-cross-tied) are experimentally investigated, under different simulated PSCs. The result of the study reveals that innovative array topologies may be one of the promising solutions to the PSC problems associated with PV technology.
