Differential Evolution Based Solar Photovoltaic Array Reconfiguration Algorithm for Optimal Energy Extraction during Partial Shading Condition

To increase energy yield from an installed photovoltaic (PV) array, particularly during partial shading condition (PSC), a new technique based on reconfigurable PV array interconnection is proposed in this work. The proposed technique works by dynamically changing the interconnection of PV modules to form a new configuration using a switching matrix inside the array. The criteria of good reconfigurable PV array interconnection techniques depend on the efficiency and accuracy of the control algorithm to optimally reconfigure the PV array to maximize the total output power. Hence, this paper proposes a new control algorithm using differential evolution (DE) for photovoltaic array reconfiguration (PVAR). To verify the superiority of the proposed algorithm, DE is compared with the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm. Results confirm that DE performs well in terms of the amount of energy production during PSC. For all the nine shading patterns tested on a 3 × 3 PV array, DE yields 1% to 5% more power than PSO.