Evaluation of cumulative impact of partial shading and aerosols on different PV array topologies through combined Shannon's entropy and DEA

This paper investigates performance of seven photovoltaic (PV) array topologies experimentally under cumulative impact of partial shading and deposition of aerosols at different irradiance levels and aerosol types at their different concentration levels. Different array topologies respond differently with regard to their mismatch power loss and fill factor under partial shaded condition. However, a comprehensive analysis of their behavior under the influence of other environmental phenomena is neglected so far by the researchers. The topologies studied in the present work, include four conventional topologies viz. series-parallel (SP), honey comb (HC), bridge link (BL) and total cross-tied (TCT) along with three novel hybrid topologies proposed in this paper (CT-SP, CT-BL and CT-HC). The complex and large amount of data generated from the experimental study have been analyzed using combined Shannon's entropy and data envelopment analysis to quantify the relative performances of different PV array topologies under different environmental conditions. The proposed methodology of comprehensive analysis will help the policy makers and researchers to enhance the performance ratio of PV projects by leveraging on the environmental factors and thereby increase techno-commercial viability of the PV projects. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.