The challenges of modern power systems will inevitably impose increased ancillary service requirements to photovoltaic (PV) plants in the future, including operating reserves. Recent studies have investigated methods to maintain active power reserves without energy storage in the standard case of uniform illumination. In this paper, this functionality is extended to partial shading conditions, often encountered in PV systems. A new control scheme is proposed that permits operation at a reduced power level, estimating at the same time the shading conditions and maximum available power. This is achieved by applying a least-squares curve fitting algorithm on voltage and current measurements, without relying on any irradiance or temperature sensors. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first power reserves control scheme for PV systems under partial shading presented in the literature. The robustness and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated under rapidly changing shading conditions through simulations and experimental tests on a 2-kW PV system prototype. Index Terms-Active power control, maximum power point tracking (MPPT), partial shading, power reserves, photovoltaic (PV) system. I. INTRODUCTION T HE INTERMITTENT nature of renewable energy generation imposes technical challenges to the power system operation and control [1], [2]. Network codes are constantly revised, requiring increasingly more services from these systems, including fault-ride-through, reactive power injection, frequency response, operating reserves, and output power variability (rate of change) constraints [3]-[9]. To provide some of these services, a power plant should be able to keep active power