Evaluation and Analysis of Selective Deployment of Power Optimizers for Residential PV Systems

Partial shading is widely considered to be a limiting factor in the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems applied in urban environments. Modern system architectures, combined with per module deployment of power electronics, have been used to improve performance, especially at heterogeneous irradi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Energies (Basel) Vol. 14; no. 4; p. 811
Main Authors:	Sinapis, Kostas, Tsatsakis, Konstantinos, Dörenkämper, Maarten, van Sark, Wilfried G. J. H. M.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Basel MDPI AG 01-02-2021
Subjects:	BIPV Diodes Irradiance partial shading Photovoltaics power optimizers Reference systems Retrofitting Roofing SDPO Shading Simulation Urban environments Netherlands Japan
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Summary:	Partial shading is widely considered to be a limiting factor in the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems applied in urban environments. Modern system architectures, combined with per module deployment of power electronics, have been used to improve performance, especially at heterogeneous irradiance conditions, but they come with a high investment cost. In this paper, another approach is used to evaluate the selective deployment of power optimizers (SDPO), which can operate with a variety of string inverters and can be retrofitted in PV systems suffering from high shading losses. A combination of modelling and outdoor field testing showed the benefits and drawbacks of SDPOs in a variety of shading scenarios. Results suggest that there is an energy yield increase of 1–2% on an annual basis compared to that of a reference system. The exact level of increase depends on the shading patterns and combination scenarios used in this paper.
ISSN:	1996-1073 1996-1073
DOI:	10.3390/en14040811