Model of Series-Parallel Photovoltaic Arrays Designed for Parallel Computing

Photovoltaic (PV) arrays connected in Series-Parallel (SP) configuration are widely used in PV installations of different power levels. Accurate and low calculation time models of SP arrays are required for different applications; however, the models available in literature have a high computational burden due to the requirement of solving nested systems of nonlinear equations. This paper introduces a mathematical model for SP arrays designed for parallel computing to improve the calculation speed. For a given array voltage the current of each string is calculated by solving a nonlinear equation, which is independent from the other strings. Therefore, each nonlinear equation is solved in a different core and, finally, all the strings' currents are added to obtain the array current. Simulation results put into evidence the capacity of the proposed model to reproduce the characteristic curves of an SP array and the reduction in the calculation time with respect to an equivalent model available in literature.