Electrical performance of a fully reconfigurable series-parallel photovoltaic module

Andres Calcabrini, Mirco Muttillo, Miro Zeman, Patrizio Manganiello*, Olindo Isabella

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

Reconfigurable photovoltaic modules are a promising approach to improve the energy yield of partially shaded systems. So far, the feasibility of this concept has been evaluated through simulations or simplified experiments. In this work, we analyse the outdoor performance of a full-scale prototype of a series-parallel photovoltaic module with six reconfigurable blocks. Over a 4-month-long period, its performance was compared to a reference photovoltaic module with static interconnections and six bypass diodes. The results show that under partial shading, the reconfigurable module produced 10.2% more energy than the reference module. In contrast, under uniform illumination the energy yield of the reconfigurable PV module was 1.9% lower due to the additional losses introduced by its switching matrix. Finally, a modification in the reconfiguration algorithm is proposed to reduce the output current–voltage range of the module and simplify the design of module-level power converters while limiting the shading tolerance loss.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8113
Number of pages8
JournalNature Communications
Volume14
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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