Experimental and numerical study of solar cell performance under different shading conditions

In practical applications of photovoltaic (PV) modules, the shading is an unavoidable issue. This study systematically investigates the impact of the shading on the performance of solar cells by combining experimental measurements with numerical simulations. Key performance parameters, including open circuit voltage (V_oc), short circuit current (I_sc), maximum output power (P_max), and series resistance (R_s), are analyzed under different shading ratios. The experimental results demonstrate that the shading significantly reduces I_sc and P_max, both of which exhibit a linear decreasing trend as the shading ratio increases. Meanwhile, V_oc shows only a slight decline, whereas R_s increases exponentially, indicating that series resistance plays a crucial role in power loss under the shading conditions. Furthermore, an equivalent transformation method is proposed, which converts regular shading patterns into equivalent strip-shaped shading along the coordinate axis, enabling rapid performance prediction under various shading conditions. Experimental validation confirms a high degree of agreement of the predicted and measured I-V and P-V characteristics, with relative deviations in key performance parameters remaining below 3%. Moreover, the proposed model exhibits high accuracy in predicting the impact of the irregular shading, such as the shading caused by leaves. These findings provide technical support for assessing the effect of shading on solar cell efficiency and offer as an effective modeling tool for evaluating the performance of solar cells under both uniform and non-uniform shading conditions.