(182b) Optimal Solar Cell Configuration Under Partially Shaded Conditions

The objective of this work is to develop computational tools to identify optimal configurations when integrating a large number of PV cells under shady or faulty conditions. Monte Carlo simulation is used to simulate a PV cell module under partially shaded conditions and to find the optimal number of bypass diodes needed to minimize performance losses. Both event-driven Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) are used to evaluate the effect of the number of bypass diodes on the PV module maximum power point under uncertain shading conditions [1]. The number of shaded cells and their position in the PV module are considered random variables, and the model is evaluated under different shading levels.

Figure 1: P-V curve for one shaded cell (50% shading) at different bypass diodes [1]

Figure 2: MAUT total value function (50% shading) [1]

References:

[1] Alobaid, A. and R. A. Adomaitis, (2018). Monte Carlo Simulation for Optimal Solar Cell Configuration. Proceedings of PSE 2018.