Reconfiguration of Urban Photovoltaic Arrays Using Commercial Devices

Sergio Ignacio Serna-Garcés, Juan David Bastidas-Rodríguez and Carlos Andrés Ramos-Paja
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Sergio Ignacio Serna-Garcés: Departamento de Electrónica y Telecomunicaciones, Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano, Cra. 31 No. 54-10, Medellín 050013, Colombia
Juan David Bastidas-Rodríguez: Escuela de Ingenierías Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Telecomunicaciones, Universidad Industrial de Santander, Cra. 27 Calle 9, Bucaramanga 680002, Colombia
Carlos Andrés Ramos-Paja: Departamento de Energía Eléctrica y Automática, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Cra. 80 No. 65-223, Medellín 050041, Colombia

Energies, 2015, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-23

Abstract: A recent approach to mitigate the adverse effects of photovoltaic (PV) arrays operating under mismatching conditions is the dynamic electrical reconfiguration of the PV panels. This paper introduces a procedure to determine the best configuration of a PV array connected in a series-parallel structure without using complex mathematical models. Such a procedure uses the experimental current vs. voltage curves of the PV panels, which are composed of multiple PV modules, to construct the power vs. voltage curves of all of the possible configurations to identify the optimal one. The main advantage of this method is the low computational effort required to reconstruct the power vs. voltage curves of the array. This characteristic enables one to implement the proposed solution using inexpensive embedded devices, which are widely adopted in industrial applications. The proposed method, and its embedded implementation, were tested using a hardware-in-the-loop simulation of the PV system. Finally, the real-time operation and benefits of the proposed solution are illustrated using a practical example based on commercial devices.

Keywords: optimal configuration; reconfiguration; series-parallel arrays; embedded systems; partial shading; mismatching conditions; hardware in the loop (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: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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