Distributed Control of Photovoltaic Modules for Sailing Applications and for Sustainable Mobility

Photovoltaic (PV) systems used in applications for sustainable mobility dramatically suffer from mismatching effects. In fact, the energy losses due to shadows and soil, but also referable to manufacturing tolerances and ageing, lower the power production of the PV string significantly and make the adoption of such energy source unattractive. It is a common practice, especially if the PV string is made of a small number of cells, to connect the cells in series, thus connecting the resulting string at the input of a battery charger in order to adapt the current profile to the battery needs. Nevertheless, such solutions guarantee a poor battery recharging and this estranges the customer from the PV technology even if it has a large potential in this field of application. In this paper the development of a new PV kit for sailing applications and for sustainable mobility is presented. It has been initially designed for the Class 40 racing craft "Telecom Italia" of Giovanni Soldini, but now it is on the market as a plug-and-play device for a variety of uses