Short Survey of Architectures of Photovoltaic Arrays for Solar Power Generation Systems

Alexander Abramovitz and Doron Shmilovitz
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Alexander Abramovitz: Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Holon Institute of Technology, 52 Golomb St., Holon 5810201, Israel
Doron Shmilovitz: Department of Physical Electronics, School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel-Aviv University, P.O. Box 39040, Tel Aviv-Yafo 69978, Israel

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-28

Abstract: Since the industrial revolution, the world’s economy has mainly relied on the consumption of fossil fuels. The burning of coal releases vast amounts of toxic CO x greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere that bear an undesirable environmental impact. The ongoing offshore oil exploration activities; the infrastructure for oil extraction, production, and transportation; and the inevitable oil spills cause severe damage to the environment and huge loss of sea life, flora, and fauna. Recent awareness of the environmental issues and the worldwide climate change spurred public interest in clean and environmentally friendly “green” energy generation. Solar energy is an abundant and inexhaustible resource that can meet much of the worlds’ energy needs and, thus, has been in the focus of scientific attention for many years. Yet, converting solar energy into usable electric power is a formidable engineering and economical challenge. The recent environmental awareness triggered governments and private companies around the world to encourage further research and capital investment into the development and deployment of efficient and cost-effective solar technologies. This review reports on advances in the technological approaches that can be employed to convert sunlight to electricity. This article presents a short survey of the state-of-the-art architectures of photovoltaic arrays and a review of the concepts and strategies of their associated electronic power processors for solar energy generation. The paper aims to be of assistance to engineers and scientists who are already engaged or just joining this fascinating field, to promote the knowledge of photovoltaic energy and facilitate the proliferation of the solar power generation systems.

Keywords: photovoltaic; solar energy; PV arrays; shading; mismatch; PV inverters; MPPT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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