Performance improvement of reconfiguration strategies in photovoltaic array by replacement of blocking diodes with MOSFETs

The power from photovoltaic array (PVA) is affected by temperature, solar irradiation, dust concentration, wind velocity, photovoltaic array configuration (PVAC) and shading pattern. The problem of partial shading (PS) is recognized as a major concern which decreases the PVA output power and represents multiple peak power points in the PV characteristic. Different PVACs respond differently with regard to their mismatch power loss (MPL) and fill factor (FF) under partial shaded condition (PSC). The conventional PVACs, such as SP-diode (Series-Parallel), TCT-diode (Total-Cross-Tied), BL-diode (Bridge-Link) and HC-diode (Honey-Comb), use blocking diodes (B-diodes) to block the reverse current. On the other hand, the proposed PVACs, including SP-MOSFET, TCT-MOSFET, BL-MOSFET and HC-MOSFET, replace the B-diodes with Blocking P-MOSFETs (BP-MOSFETs). The improvement in power output of the PVA is examined for four different configurations with B-diode and BP-MOSFET under changing illumination conditions. It is observed that TCT-MOSFET configuration shows better performance with least power losses and maximum efficiency under PSCs.