LAPSE:2020.0685
Published Article
LAPSE:2020.0685
Mitigation of Hot-Spots in Photovoltaic Systems Using Distributed Power Electronics
June 23, 2020
In the presence of partial shading and other mismatch factors, bypass diodes may not offer complete elimination of excessive power dissipation due to cell reverse biasing, commonly referred to as hot-spotting in photovoltaic (PV) systems. As a result, PV systems may experience higher failure rates and accelerated ageing. In this paper, a cell-level simulation model is used to assess occurrence of hot-spotting events in a representative residential rooftop system scenario featuring a moderate shading environment. The approach is further used to examine how well distributed power electronics converters mitigate the effects of partial shading and other sources of mismatch by preventing activation of bypass diodes and thereby reducing the chances of heavy power dissipation and hot-spotting in mismatched cells. The simulation results confirm that the occurrence of heavy power dissipation is reduced in all distributed power electronics architectures, and that submodule-level converters offer nearly 100% mitigation of hot-spotting. In addition, the paper further elaborates on the possibility of hot-spot-induced permanent damage, predicting a lifetime energy loss above 15%. This energy loss is fully recoverable with submodule-level power converters that mitigate hot-spotting and prevent the damage.
Keywords
accelerated ageing, balancing, bypass diodes, converters, hot-spotting, partial-shading, photovoltaics, power electronics, reliability, subMICs
Suggested Citation
Olalla C, Hasan MN, Deline C, Maksimović D. Mitigation of Hot-Spots in Photovoltaic Systems Using Distributed Power Electronics. (2020). LAPSE:2020.0685
Author Affiliations
Olalla C: Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Automatic Control Engineering, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain [ORCID]
Hasan MN: Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Automatic Control Engineering, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, 43007 Tarragona, Spain
Deline C: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA [ORCID]
Maksimović D: Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA [ORCID]
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Journal Name
Energies
Volume
11
Issue
4
Article Number
E726
Year
2018
Publication Date
2018-03-23
Published Version
ISSN
1996-1073
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Original Submission
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PII: en11040726, Publication Type: Journal Article
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LAPSE:2020.0685
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doi:10.3390/en11040726
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Jun 23, 2020
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Jun 23, 2020
 
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Calvin Tsay
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