Abstract:

The conventional resources are being depleted day by day; hence there is a requirement of alternate energy resources. Upcoming alternate resource like solar energy is available abundantly for meeting our needs. Mostly, PV systems are used for the electrical energy demands, but the main issue with the PV system is its efficiency. The efficiency of the PV system depends on the irradiance falling on each solar cell. The non-linear I-V characteristics will be affected by the variation in the solar irradiance over the day. The I-V characteristics are important to find the MPP of the solar panel, that’s why the MPPT algorithm is becoming more significant. The partial shading will also affect the output of the PV panel. To overcome the shading effect we use power electronics elements. Multi-level DC link inverters can be used to reduce the shading effect. The maximum is extracted from the PV source to the load at their MPPs under partial shading. Each PV array is connected with multi-level inverter (MLI) in series. The seven level MLI is operated by PWM (pulse width modulation).


KEYWORDS: Solar energy, PV systems, Partial shading, Multi-level inverter (MLI), Maximum power point (MPP), Perturb & Observe (P&O).