Performances of photovoltaic array configurations under partial shading condition

Photovoltaic (PV) array in m × n (m is the number of rows and n for columns) scheme actually has a lot of possible configurations. Each configuration should produces different I-V and P-V characteristic curves especially under Partial Shading Condition (PSC). Configurations that are easier to be implemented on a large number of modules are parallel, series, series-parallel (SP) and total-cross-tied (TCT) schemes. This paper presents the PV characteristic curves from all possible configurations of six PV modules under different shaded conditions. The result shows that parallel configuration is the best one because it has the highest optimum power under all shaded conditions and the highest is 218.6 Watt. Furthermore, TCT configuration can obtain higher power than SP configuration on the same m × n scheme.