Designing solar arrays to account for reduced performance from self-shading

The goal of any solar array is to maximize energy production by increasing irradiance absorption and mitigating losses. In large-scale arrays, parallel rows of solar panels can shade adjacent rows, reducing production owing to effects known as self-shading and diffuse masking. For this work, the influence of row spacing and panel tilt angle on trade-offs between shading impact and irradiance capture is evaluated. A model that takes into account sub-module level mismatch is developed and can be applied to a wide range of geographic regions. Additionally, a method for simulating large arrays, which utilizes a lookup table of IV curves, is proposed. The table circumvents the tedious process of generating curves in real-time and allows fast power output calculations. With this method, simulation time is drastically reduced while introducing estimation error of 0.25%, as compared to full numerical approaches.