Control of a novel PV tracking system considering the shadow influence

In this paper a novel tracking system is described, regarding the influence of shadow between arrays, aimed at improving the efficiency of PV tracking system. Comparing with a building site versus capacity power, domestic solar powers have a limited setting. Therefore, each array interferes with the shadow of other arrays. The loss by influence of those shadows can be compensated for by means of control algorithm of the tracking device. The paper suggests a method controlling an altitude for length which is received the shadow influence of PV array. By using an azimuth of current solar position and the length between arrays, the controller of tracking device is able to calculate the length between actual arrays and make a comparison of the shadow length at a specific time with the length between arrays. When the shadow length is longer than the length between arrays, the controller of tracking device can adjust a position by compensating error altitude of the length between arrays at an altitude of current solar position. In the paper, we develop the control algorithm able to minimize the loss caused by the influence of shadow on the PV tracking system, and compared this with conventional output system. The controller has been tested in the laboratory with proposed algorithm and shows excellent performance.