Efficiency Improvement of Nonuniformly Aged PV Arrays

The utilization of solar energy by photovoltaic (PV) systems has received much research and development attention across the globe. In the past decades, a large number of PV array have been installed. Since the installed PV arrays often operate in harsh environments, nonuniform aging can occur and i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on power electronics 2017-02, Vol.32 (2), p.1124-1137
Main Authors: Yihua Hu, Jiangfeng Zhang, Jiande Wu, Wenping Cao, Gui Yun Tian, Kirtley, James L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aging
Arrays
Circuits
Computer simulation
Consumer electronics
Converters
Electric potential
Electrical engineering
Energy conversion efficiency
Maximum power tracking
Modules
nonuniform aging
offline reconfiguration
output characteristics
Photovoltaic cells
photovoltaics (PVs)
Power generation
R&D
Reconfiguration
Research & development
Service life
Short circuit currents
Silicon
Solar cells
Solar energy
Temperature measurement
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Summary:The utilization of solar energy by photovoltaic (PV) systems has received much research and development attention across the globe. In the past decades, a large number of PV array have been installed. Since the installed PV arrays often operate in harsh environments, nonuniform aging can occur and impact adversely on the performance of PV systems, especially in the middle and late periods of their service life. Due to the high cost of replacing aged PV modules by new modules, it is appealing to improve energy efficiency of aged PV systems. For this purpose, this paper presents a PV module reconfiguration strategy to achieve the maximum power generation from nonuniformly aged PV arrays without significant investment. The proposed reconfiguration strategy is based on the cell-unit structure of PV modules, the operating voltage limit of grid-connected converter, and the resulted bucket effect of the maximum short-circuit current. The objectives are to analyze all the potential reorganization options of the PV modules, find the maximum power point, and express it in a proposition. This proposition is further developed into a novel implementable algorithm to calculate the maximum power generation and the corresponding reconfiguration of the PV modules. The immediate benefits from this reconfiguration are the increased total power output and maximum power point voltage information for global maximum power point tracking. A PV array simulation model is used to illustrate the proposed method under three different cases. Furthermore, an experimental rig is built to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method will open an effective approach for condition-based maintenance of emerging aging PV arrays.
ISSN:0885-8993
1941-0107
DOI:10.1109/TPEL.2016.2544842