Increasing efficiency of photovoltaic systems under non-homogeneous solar irradiation using improved Dynamic Programming methods

The paper presents a complete technique, based on the combination of algorithms, devoted to minimize losses and increase efficiency of Total Cross Tied (TCT) connected photovoltaic (PV) systems under non-homogeneous solar irradiation, based on irradiance equalization criterion. Irradiance equalization is achieved by changing the connections of the solar panels adaptively by a dynamic switching matrix so that total solar radiation on parallel circuits is the most equalized. In this paper, the authors introduce two algorithms. The first one is SmartChoice (SC) algorithm, which is combined with Dynamic Programming (DP) in order to create a hybrid method and obtain better results as compared to established methods for irradiance equalization. The second one is the control algorithm improvement method from Munkres' Assignment Algorithm (MAA) that helps to increase processing speed and lengthen the lifetime of the solar power system by 56% compared with the older MAA. By emulating and experiencing the operation of the PV system under non-homogeneous irradiation condition, obtained results show efficiency and benefits of the proposed method applied to the solar power system operation while lengthening the lifetime of the switching matrix.