A Simple Bipolar Transistor-Based Bypass Approach for Photovoltaic Modules

Author

d´Alessandro, Vincenzo ; Guerriero, P. ; Daliento, S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Inf. Technol., Univ. Federico II, Naples, Italy

Volume

4

Issue

1

fYear

2014

fDate

Jan. 2014

Firstpage

405

Lastpage

413

Abstract

This paper presents a novel bypass approach for photovoltaic panels relying on a bipolar transistor operated in saturation, the activation of which is handled automatically by a circuit comprising a pair of MOS transistors only. The functioning principle of the proposed system is explained and the improvements in terms of reliability of the bypassed subpanel and power produced by the string in comparison with a traditional diode-based scheme are quantified. The analysis is corroborated by dc/transient measurements and tailored PSPICE simulations.

Keywords

MOSFET; bipolar transistors; circuit simulation; semiconductor device models; semiconductor device reliability; semiconductor diodes; solar cells; MOS transistors; dc transient measurements; diode-based scheme; photovoltaic modules; reliability; simple bipolar transistor-based bypass approach; tailored PSPICE simulations; Bipolar transistors; MOS devices; Photovoltaic systems; Reliability; Schottky diodes; Transistors; Active bypass; bypass diode; hot spot; one-diode equivalent circuit; photovoltaic (PV) panel; shading;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photovoltaics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

2156-3381

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JPHOTOV.2013.2282736

Filename

6634241