Parallel power extraction technique for maximizing the output of solar PV array

•Described parallel power processing technique to improve photovoltaic array output.•Proposed method mitigate the effect of partial shading on the photovoltaic array.•Extracts power from both sides of an photovoltaic array with zero mismatch loss.•Conducted detailed simulation at different partial shading conditions.•Hardware results shows significant improvement in photovoltaic array output power. Solar energy is one of the clean energy sources which does not causes any pollution to the environment. The photovoltaic system will play a vital role in the world’s power production for the energy demand in future. Partial shading is a major concern have to be considered while installing the PV system. The effect of shaded panel will affect the performance of the non-shaded PV modules that leads to the mismatch losses. This work proposes a new technique to overcome the partial shading effect and also to enhance the total power generation from the PV array. The mismatch losses in the PV system is nullified in the proposed technique, by operating each row of the PV array with even current generation by extracting mismatch power from each row. The proposed technique is experimented in the 3 × 3 Total Cross Tied (TCT) PV array with nine numbers of 10 W PV modules. The experimental setup has been validated under the all possible shading patterns which shows that, the proposed technique nullifies the mismatch losses and also the performance has been compared with the other existing methods. The Percentage Power Loss (PLL) is greatly reduced in the proposed technique. The comparative analysis has been presented for eight shading patterns in the result and discussion in terms of Mismatch Loss (ML), Percentage of Power Loss (PPL) and Fill Factor (FF).