Performance evaluation of the octopus-type reconfiguration technique to mitigate solar partial shading

Partial shadowing is still a major obstacle to optimizing photovoltaic (PV) performance, even though solar energy makes up 45% of India’s 81GW renewable capacity. In order to maximize current flow without requiring real-time switching hardware, this study suggests a “octopus-type” electrical reconfiguration—a static, biomimetic technique modeled after the coordinated movement of octopus tentacles. This method was created especially for large-scale static installations. It was verified using a 8*8 PV array in 18 different shading patterns and contrasted with configurations like as the Total-Cross-Tied (TCT), L-Shape, Odd-Even, and Latin Square configurations. The findings show that the octopus-type reconfiguration works better than TCT in 11 of the 18 shading scenarios, resulting in a 56% increase in output power and Fill Factor and a considerable reduction in mismatch and power losses. This robust, organic-inspired setup provides an excellent way to improve energy extraction in areas that are prone to shading.