Study of the Partial Shading Effect on the Performance of Silicon PV Panels String

In this work, the effect of maintenance bridges partial shading on the performance of the Renewable Energy and Environment Research Center (REERC) PV system was thoroughly investigated, in order to estimate the power loss amount in the PV system due to the maintenance bridges. The study was performed on one panel, then projected on the whole system (540 panels). Partial shade area of the bridges was measured monthly for 9 months (3 months were missing because of the pandemic). The utilized panel in this study is a 2 m2 area panel with 96 solar cells connected in series. Measurements were carried out at three different daytimes for each month (8:30AM, 10:00AM, and 12:00PM). The results showed that loss is occurred in current and power only, where voltage showed less influence with partial shade. The results of the panel were projected to the whole system to estimate the loss of the total REERC system (540 PV panel). The designed power of the system is 155kW. The actual rated power was 78kW at noon in March 9, 2020. This is a drop of 50% of the power. This huge drop is a combined effect for both partial shade and ambient temperature.