A new ken-ken puzzle pattern based reconfiguration technique for maximum power extraction in partial shaded solar PV array

Solar Photovoltaic array may often be subjected to partial shading, which may lead to uneven row current and creates local maximum power point on the power-voltage characteristics. One of the effective approaches to dilute the concentration of partial shading is the array reconfiguration technique. This study proposes a ken-ken puzzle-based reconfiguration technique for 4times 4 total-cross-tied configuration to rearrange the position of modules within the array and to improve the maximum power under partial shading conditions. Further, the performance of the ken-ken puzzle arrangement is compared with the total-cross-tied configuration and existing reconfiguration techniques namely odd-even, Latin Square, and Sudoku reported in the literature. The performance of all these configurations is evaluated in terms of fill factor, mismatch loss, power loss, execution ratio, and performance enhancement ratio. The proposed ken-ken puzzle-based reconfiguration technique mitigates the occurrence of local maximum power point and eliminates the need for a complex algorithm to track the global maximum power point. The simulation result shows that the KK puzzle-based reconfiguration technique has obtained an improved PE of 10.85 % compared to TCT configuration, followed by LS, Sudoku, and OE. Also, the experimental result shows the effectiveness of the ken-ken in diluting the effects of partial shading when the rows of the photovoltaic array are shaded. The ken-ken puzzle-based reconfiguration technique reduces the complexity, maintenance and increases reliability, scalability of the PV array.