Research Article Open Access

Modelling of Multi-Stacked Voltage Equalizer for Photovoltaic Array under Partial Shaded Conditions

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) systems have been developed into mature technology that has been used in specialized applications. Partially shaded photovoltaic system result in reduction of power generation and produces multiple maximum power points (MMPP) in the characteristics. In this paper, multi-stacked voltage equalizer is employed to solve this issue. Multi-stacked voltage equalizer is designed by incorporating inductor, capacitor, diode and filters in traditional SEPIC converter. Single Switch in this voltage equalizer reduces the complexity of the circuit. This equalizer receives the unbalanced voltages from PV array and makes it balanced by converter operation itself. Small amount of power generated is transferred from the un-shaded PV to shaded PV so that the entire PV array is operating at the same voltage. It is observed that voltage imbalance is slowly eliminated by this equalizer.

M. S. Anandhi, R. Ramaprabha.