Presentation on

DETERMINATION OF THE
MINIMUM DISTANCE
BETWEEN ADJACENT ROWS
OF SOLAR PANELS TO
AVOID SHADING EFFECT
 Presented By:

 Sofeea Mohammad1
 Md. Shahin Azad2
1,2
MS student, Institute of Energy, University of Dhaka

Thesis Supervisor

Dr. Md. Habibur Rahman

Professor,
Department of Applied Physics, Electronics & Communication Engineering,
University of Dhaka

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 What is Shading on PV panels/modules?
In this thesis work the term “shading” has used to tell only about a shade
on one Photovoltaic (PV) module/panel by another adjacent one.

Shade

Figure-1: Typical arrangement of Solar PV module of row to row arrangement

(Adopted from Dan Weinstock, Joseph Appelbaum, 2004)

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 Type of Shading
According to Duffie, John A. et al. (2013), there are three types of shading problems occur
so frequently that methods are needed to cope with them.

The first is shading of a Photo Voltaic Panel, window, or other receiver by nearby trees,
buildings, or other obstructions. The geometries may be irregular, and systematic
calculations of shading of the receiver in question may be difficult.

The second type includes shading of Photo Voltaic Panels in other than the first row of
multi-row arrays by the Photo Voltaic Panels on the adjoining row.

The third includes shading of windows by overhangs and wing-walls. Where the
geometries are regular, shading is amenable to calculation, and the results can be
presented in general form.

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 Cont......... Type of Shading

Shading calculations are needed when two adjacent PV panels are arranged
in rows. Normally, the first row is unobstructed, but the second row may be
partially shaded by the first, the third by the second, and so on. This
arrangement of PV panels is shown in cross section:

Figure-2 : Section of two rows of a multi-row PV modules array (Adopted from

Duffie, John A. et al. 2013)

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 Cont......... Type of Shading
For the case where the Photo Voltaic Panels are long in extent so the end
effects are negligible, the profile angle provides a useful means of determining
shading. As long as the profile angle is greater than the angle CAB, no point
on row N will be shaded by row M. If the profile angle at a point in time is
CA'B' and is less than CAB, the portion of row N below point A' will be shaded
from beam radiation.

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 Effects of Shading on PV modules

From a study of Institute of Electrical Power Engineering, Lodz University of

Technology based on Patel, Mukund R. 2006, figure-2.11 says that if the large
array (consist of many parallel strings of series-connected cells) gets partially
shadowed, one or more cells in string gets totally shadowed and loses the photo
voltage. Although the current generated by the rest cells, is still flowing through
shadowed cells. Those cells generate no energy and become the load and
producing losses. The operating in full sunlight cells of the same string have to
work at higher voltage and cover the losses of the shadowed cell. A higher
voltage in full illuminated cells is related lower current in string. The relation
between shadowed area and generated current is not direct proportional. If the
numbers of shadowed cells are too high and the curve is below the voltage limit
the generated current falls to zero.

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 Cont...........Effects of Shading on PV modules/Panels

Figure-3: Shadow effect on one series string of an array (Adopted from i15.p.lodz.pl
based on Patel, Mukund R. 2006)

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 Cont...........Effects of Shading on PV modules/Panels

A study has revealed that the output of a 1400W string - which was fitted
with bypass diodes - dropped by 10% when only 4 cells were shaded.
When 12 cells were shaded, the power output dropped by more than
50%! (R. E. Hanitsch et al., 2001).

There are a lot experiments has done around the world to fix the
distance between two adjacent rows of solar panels/modules.

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 Cont...........Effects of Shading on PV modules/Panels

So, If we can’t use the solar cells by its maximum capacity, we’ll be looser
in so many ways; Shading on PV panels/modules may causes:

 The panels will be inefficient prior to its expected life span,

 Panel/Module longevity will be deteriorated,

 The expected maximum power output will never be received even

having a sufficient solar irradiance.
 Need to invest more money to buy a new set

 Per unit energy generation cost will be higher

 Continuous shading will damage a panel/module permanently

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 APPROACH FOR GETTING MINIMUM DISTANCE FOR FIXED
LATITUDE
In multiple rows of arrangement of solar panels, it is necessary to keep a
minimum distance between two to avoid shade; and consequently the effect of
shading by dropping voltage and cumulative power from the module. As J.
Appelbaum et al. 1979 the shadow height of a Photo Voltaic Panel/module on
another module is
.................(1)

Where: Hs Shadow Height on Second module due to first one

A Panel height/length
R Distance between two consecutive modules in row
arrangement
Py Shadow component toward Y axis
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 Cont..... APPROACH FOR GETTING MINIMUM
DISTANCE FOR FIXED LATITUDE

H Height of the
inclined solar panel

Figure-4: Position of two inclined solar PV modules with a tilt

angle
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 Cont..... APPROACH FOR GETTING MINIMUM DISTANCE FOR FIXED
LATITUDE

To get the value of R (OM = LN) of a tilted surface with an angle of β (L'LN =
O'OB) we have taken help from J. Appelbaum et al. 1979.
The Solar hour angle, is defined in Duffie, John A. et al. (2013)
..............(2)
where:  is the latitude angle of the location
 is the declination angle of sun
Shadow component toward Y axis is
...............(3)
Fy is the shadow component to the Y axis for a vertically placed pole or Solar
PV module; Adopting from J. Appelbaum et al. 1979 the Y axis shadow
component Fy is ................(4)

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Cont..... APPROACH FOR GETTING MINIMUM DISTANCE FOR FIXED
LATITUDE

Solar azimuth angle can be found as mentioned in Duffie, John A. et al.

(2013) as

.............(5)
where: s Solar Azimuth angle
z Zenith Angle
Since Solar Altitude Angle (S) is the compliment of the zenith angle, we can
rewrite the above equation

.................(6)

Shadow component toward Y axis can be re-written as

..................(7)
 Cont..... APPROACH FOR GETTING MINIMUM DISTANCE FOR
FIXED LATITUDE
From equation (1) and (6) we can write
..................... (8)

From figure -4, its very clear that for a maximum output from a solar PV module
the term must be zero; i.e. module surface will be out of shadow. So the above
equation becomes
....................(9)

Based on the above equations we have tried to develop a simple tool (basically
excel based) to determine minimum distance between two adjacent solar
panels/modules to avoid shading effect:

Adjacent rows distance calculator avoiding shading effect.xlsx

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 Justification of the developed tool
To justify the developed tool a simple experimental arrangement has done just
to measure the shadow length, calculate angle of incidence.

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 Cont.........Justification of the developed tool

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 Cont.........Justification of the developed tool
Experimental data calculation to determine min distance.xlsx

Summary of Shadow length from our excel tool and experiment

From 09:00 to 15:00 Hr Shadow Length, R(A= 1m) Experiment

β = ϕ -15° β=ϕ β = ϕ +15° β = 90°
AVERAGE SHADOW
1.1919 1.2465 1.232 1. 09
LENGTH
MAXIMUM SHADOW
1.2441 1.4903 1.674 2.09
LENGTH

According to the simple tool, developed using office excel, the minimum distance
between two adjacent PV panels rows is not less than 1.25 times of the length of
the PV modules throughout the whole year for a northern hemispheric zone. This
tool is available at the following link for verification and general use.

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 Online location

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BynUPMzwCv
EiclVFY3NxcWFadm8/edit?usp=sharing

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 Future scope of work

1. The experiment has done by using a vertical pole with a simplest set up; that
has some percentage of error. To get a precise data a well prepared scaled
set up can be developed to measure the shadow and the length of diffracted
shadow length.

2. For avoiding lot of raw data the experiment confined with a fixed surface
azimuth angle of the tilted surface in our simple. The effect of variation of
surface azimuth angle on PV performance also can be studied.

3. Gathering shadow length of inclined PV modules with few tilt angles for the
whole year, an empirical relation between shadow and PV module lengths
can be achieved with a simplified way for the northern hemispheric
geographical areas focusing different regions in Bangladesh.

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