Improving the efficiency of large solar fields

Being able to correctly track the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of a solar array is of a paramount importance, especially when dealing with large and very large solar fields. Each deviation means - energy is not optimally harvested from the field. This is evident to the extreme, when local shading occurs. Then, locally shaded cells turn into loads on the entire array. In the past, it was offered to deal with the problem using bypass diodes and halter diodes. This approach is not satisfactory, as the diodes only disconnect the shaded cells from the array at best, while not utilizing the energy these cells continue to absorb. It is offered to improve the utility by making sure all panels work as close to their respective optimal power points as possible, using modifications done to the interconnection between them. Finding the MPP in order to classify panels for meandering was used to be a problem till the introduction of the 10-parameter nonlinear solar cell model. Provided all parameters are known a-priori, acquiring the temperature and illumination on the cell can be done using an iterative algorithm performed on the 10-parameter model with temperature extensions using single working point voltage and current measurements, or in a more straight-forward manner, using a camera, a thermometer and an anemometer.