Investigation of Maximum Power Point Tracking of Different Kinds of Solar Panels under Partial Shading Conditions

There are three types of materials, which are widely used for modern solar panels - monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and amorphous. In this article, we have constructed the one diode model of these three different materials in order to find their I-V characteristic curves under partial shading conditions (PSCs). We have demonstrated that a maximum power point (MPP) tracker, under the same PSCs spends less time and has better tracking efficiency in tracking the MPP of a solar panel, made of amorphous silicon, because this type of solar panel has the lowest curvature value compared to the monocrystalline and the polycrystalline silicon panels. Various state-of-the-art maximum power point tracking algorithms are used to validate this finding. Experimental validation for both static and dynamic PSCs are conducted in the article.