Modeling and reconfiguration of solar photovoltaic arrays under non-uniform shadow conditions

Mass production and use of electricity generated from solar energy has become very common recently because of the environmental threats arising from the production of electricity from fossil fuels and nuclear power. The obvious benefits of solar energy are clean energy production and infinite supply...

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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d10018682
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Summary:Mass production and use of electricity generated from solar energy has become very common recently because of the environmental threats arising from the production of electricity from fossil fuels and nuclear power. The obvious benefits of solar energy are clean energy production and infinite supply of daylight. The main disadvantage is the high cost. In these photovoltaic systems, semiconductor materials convert the solar light into electrical energy. Current versus voltage characteristics of the solar cells are non-linear, thus leading to technical control challenges. In the first order approximation, output power of a solar array is proportional to the irradiance of sunlight. However, in many applications, such as solar power plants, building integrated photovoltaic or solar tents, the solar photovoltaic arrays might be illuminated non-uniformly. The cause of non-uniform illumination may be the shadow of clouds, the trees, booms, neighbor's houses, or the shadow of one solar array on the other, etc. This further leads to nonlinearities in characteristics.