Comparing Shading With Irradiance Reduction Effects on Solar Cells Electrical Parameters

It has been widely accepted in the literature that partial shading of a photovoltaic (PV) solar cell and light irradiance reduction among its whole surface have the same effect on its characteristics and parameters. This paper presents an experimental comparison between those two cases applied to a mono-crystalline silicon (mono-Si) solar cell. Two cases of opaque partial shading were compared with the corresponding irradiance levels on the whole cell surface. The comparison includes the electrical parameters, the current-voltage (I-V) curve and the power-voltage (P-V) curve. The results show that there is no significant difference observed between the two operational cases. Hence, the assumption that partial shading of a single cell is equivalent to irradiance reduction on its surface is valid.