Abstract—In series-connected wiring scheme, the residual energy generated by partially shaded cells cannot be collected or, worse, impedes collection of power from the remaining fully illuminated cells. In this paper, a parallel-connected topology is introduced to PV panel. Each cell, connected to the dc bus paralleled with a special converter, is treated as a voltage source. The dc-dc converter is introduced to realize the method, which could work under an ultra-low-voltage (ULV). Efficiency comparison is discussed with a valid calculation. Experiments about the converter, PV cell and the parallel-connected panel are given. The results show that the novel system has a good working characteristic and the efficiency is higher than that of the conventional.

Index Terms—Solar photovoltaic, parallel-connected, converter, ULV, efficiency.

The authors are with Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No.800 Dongchuan Rd, Shanghai, China (e-mail: yuzhiwen@sjtu.edu.cn, profxzg@hotmail.com, syfjq@126.com).