Abstract:A photovoltaic system is highly susceptible to partial shading. Based on the functionality of a photovoltaic system that relies on solar irradiance to generate electrical power, it is tacitly assumed that the maximum power of a partially shaded photovoltaic system always decreases as the shading heaviness increases. However, the literature has reported that this might not be the case. The maximum power of a partially shaded photovoltaic system under a fixed configuration and partial shading pattern can be highly insusceptible to shading heaviness when a certain critical point is met. This paper presents an investigation of the impact of partial shading and the critical point that reduce the susceptibility of shading heaviness. Photovoltaic string formed by series-connected photovoltaic modules is used in this research. The investigation of the P-V characteristic curve under different numbers of shaded modules and shading heaviness suggests that the photovoltaic string becomes insusceptible to shading heaviness when the shaded modules irradiance reaches a certain critical point. The critical point can vary based on the number of the shaded modules. The formulated equation in this research contributes to determining the critical point for different photovoltaic string sizes and numbers of shaded modules in the photovoltaic string.

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This paper presents the investigation of partial shading characteristics of mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline photovoltaic module connected in series. Simulink models are developed to assist the investigation to determine the ideality factor for mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline photovoltaic module. Commercially available mono-crystalline and poly-crystalline photovoltaic module are used to extract measurable parameters for the model to study the behaviour of I-V curve. Measurements have been conducted for the investigation includingmono-crystalline only, poly-crystalline only, both unshaded, mono-crystalline shaded and poly-crystalline shaded. This paper contributes to the understanding of partial shading characteristics of different materials presence in photovoltaic string.