Evaluation of Maxim module-Integrated electronics at the DOE Regional Test Centers

Abstract

Module-embedded power electronics developed by Maxim Integrated are under evaluation through a partnership with the Department of Energy's Regional Test Center (RTC) program. Field deployments of both conventional modules and electronics-enhanced modules are designed to quantify the performance advantage of Maxim's products under different amounts of interrow shading, and their ability to be deployed at a greater ground-coverage ratio than conventional modules. Simulations in PVSYST have quantified the predicted performance difference between conventional modules and Maxim's modules from interrow shading.Initial performance results have identified diffuse irradiance losses at tighter row spacing for both the Maxim and conventional modules. Comparisons with published models show good agreement with models predicting the greatest diffuse irradiance losses. At tighter row spacing, all of the strings equipped with embedded power electronics outperformed their conventional peers. An even greater performance advantage is predicted to occur in the winter months when the amount of interrow shading mismatch is at a maximum.Index Terms -partial shading, MLPE, embedded power electronics, PV system performance, diffuse view factor

Photovoltaic Shading Testbed for Module-Level Power Electronics: 2016 Performance Data Update

“…This embedded module is designed to reduce inter-row shading losses when installed in portrait configuration, so the 2-up portrait shading histogram of Appendix B is used in this experiment. More details on this technology can be found in [12].…”

“…Simulated shading loss is calculated relative to unshaded system performance, and separated into beam shading loss (transient opaque shading leading to large intra-panel mismatch) and diffuse loss (persistent small irradiance loss across the system due to reduced field-of-view of the diffuse sky dome). A detailed discussion of diffuse shading loss in this system is given in [12]. For the inter-row shading procedure considered here, only the beam shading loss is considered for recovery.…”

Performance of differential power-processing submodule DC-DC converters in recovering inter-row shading losses

“…To address the discrepancy between the first row which has full production and the remaining rows which output the partially shaded response, the diffuse loss is derated by the number of internal rows. Previously published results show diffuse loss can be closely modeled assuming a worst-case ψ at the bottom of each module (z = 0) [8]. In this paper, a worst-case cell-level diffuse loss is calculated with z at the bottom of each cell.…”

“…An array with small R and high GCR has the advantage of high energy production per land area (kWh/m 2 ), but generates less total energy compared to a similarly-rated array with longer row-to-row pitch and smaller losses from inter-row shading [4], [8].…”

Mitigation of Hot-Spots in Photovoltaic Systems Using Distributed Power Electronics

“…These approaches have been considered mainly at the module level (FPP MICs) [29,30], limiting the effects of mismatch, but not always preventing activation of bypass diodes. Submodule level realizations of FPP converters (denoted FPP subMICs) have also been proposed [31,32]. These converters effectivley replace bypass diodes and maintain the submodules at their respective maximum power points, reducing the probability of hot-spot occurrence.…”