Static and Dynamic Reconfiguration Strategies for Reducing Partial Shading Effects in Photovoltaic Array: A Comprehensive Review

The output power generated by a photovoltaic (PV) cell decreases remarkably because of the irregular irradiance pattern. Thus, the overall system performance is degraded. The decrease in the power output is not dependent on the shaded area but is rather dependent on the array configuration and the shading pattern. To eliminate partial shadings, many strategies have been documented in the state‐of‐the‐art literature. These strategies may not improve the maximum output power to the required level but definitely do so to a certain extent. Thus, to minimize these losses, a promising reconfiguration approach is needed, i.e., reconfiguring the PV modules inside the PV array to improve the maximum power output. These techniques are broadly divided into two categories, viz., static and dynamic reconfiguration methods. The advanced PV array reconfiguration solutions to improve global power output under mismatch and partial shading scenarios are presented in this article. According to the results of the review article studied in this research, dynamic approaches are costlier as compared to static reconfiguration strategies, but are more effective to reduce the partial shading impact in comparison to the static techniques.