Photovoltaic array reconfiguration under partial shading based on integer link matrix and harmony search

Abstract

This paper mainly reconfigures a total cross tied (TCT) photovoltaic array (PA) under partial shading, aiming to maximize the power output based on irradiance mismatch index (IMI). First, the positions of the PV modules in the array were represented as an integer link matrix. The binary value of each integer in the matrix stands for the new position of each PV module in the array. Next, the harmony search (HS) was coupled with the integer link matrix to minimize the IMI. Then, the proposed reconfiguration method was compared with several famous techniques through case studies. The results show that the integer link matrix achieved the best reconfiguration pattern for each case, and the HS outperformed all the contrastive metaheuristic algorithms. The research findings shed important new light on PV power generation under partial shading.