Quantification of System-Level Mismatch Losses using PVMismatch

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Differences in the current-voltage characteristics of photovoltaic (PV) modules connected in series and parallel combinations lead to a loss in the system level power referred to as “electrical mismatch”. As a result of electrical mismatch, the power at the maximum operating point of the PV system is less than the sum of the power outputs of the modules if they were acting independently. In this study, the PVM is match python package was used to model PV modules from two representative flash test datasets. Randomly sampling from that dataset, a variety of PV systems configurations were simulated using the Monte Carlo technique to arrive at distributions of potential configuration-specific mismatch losses. Further, this method was extended to simulate annual energy loss due to mismatch for a sample location. The method provides a framework to quantify electrical mismatch losses for accurate performance modeling of PV systems and enables sensitivity analyses to adopt effective binning strategies for reducing system level mismatch losses.

This publication has 8 references indexed in Scilit: