Laboratory Investigation of Photovoltaic Panel Performance Under the Shaded Condition

The most encouraging use of solar energy is its conversion into electrical energy by using solar photovoltaic (PV) panel. The performance of solar-based PV panel is undoubtedly influenced by the quantity of solar radiation, which is reaching on the panel surface. The occurrence of shading over the panel surface is a vital environmental phenomenon which affects the penetration of solar radiation to reach the overall surface area of photovoltaic cells. The shading on PV panels may happen due to trees, the formation of mists, accumulation of dirt elements on the panel surface, close by long-standing structures, shadows of different panels in its region, neighbouring structures and so on. This paper is mainly focused on the study of shading impact on the panel performance. Further, this paper also observed the influence of shading on the variation of surface temperature of the PV panel. The present study shown a significant reduction of 41.40% in the maximum power output (Pmax) of the panel due to 25% shading strength of the single cell in the panel. Moreover, it was also observed that the increase in the percentage shading strength over the panel surface shifts the maximum power point (MPP), of the panel characteristics, towards the lower output voltage, which affects the effective operation of the charge controller. Further, it was seen that the shading impact degrades the performance of the panel as well as in charge of the rise of the surface temperature of the panel. In the present investigation, it was observed that the temperature of the unshaded cell rises at the rate of 1.753%, due to the shading phenomena over the panel surface.