Necessity Analysis of Bypass Diode for AC Module under Partial Shading Condition

To protect a photovoltaic module from the hot spot effect more efficiently, an AC (alternating current) that contains module-level MPPT (maximum power point tracking) has been put forward. In this paper, operation states of shadowed solar cells and relevant bypass diodes were studied through MATLAB/Simulink tools, commercial PV was used to reveal temperature change when working at different LMPP (local maximum point). Experiment results show diode can reduce loss for some extent but limited on protecting effect. Instead, it is likely form local turns on, worst shading condition with about 46.5% during work states.