| Summary: | In the face of the increasing depletion of non-renewable energy sources and increasingly serious environmental problems, the development of green and environmentally friendly renewable energy sources cannot be delayed. Because of the far-reaching development potential of solar energy, solar power has become an important research object for power development. The available solar energy in space is several times greater than that on Earth. Solar energy from space can be collected by a space solar power station (SSPS) and transmitted to the ground by wireless power transfer. In the full-chain ground-based validation system of SSPS-OMEGA, the spherical concentrator is used, and the light intensity distribution on the solar receiver is non-uniform. The non-uniform light intensity makes the output current of each photovoltaic (<i>PV</i>) cell on the solar receiver greatly different, and causes power losses, known as the mismatch problem. This paper proposes a simple, efficient and easy-to-implement method to optimize the structure of <i>PV</i> arrays to reduce the effect of non-uniform light on the output performance of each <i>PV</i> cell, which is beneficial to the topology of <i>PV</i> arrays and also effectively improves the layout rate. Then, a differential power processing (DPP) converter with a simple structure and easy control is designed to further deal with the power mismatch problem between series-connected <i>PV</i> modules. Finally, a simulation circuit model and a physical hardware model of the differential power processing <i>PV</i> system are built and used in the full-chain ground-based validation system of SSPS-OMEGA. The results demonstrate that the influence of non-uniform lighting on <i>PV</i> cells is effectively reduced, the output power of <i>PV</i> modules connected in series under non-uniform light distribution is substantially increased, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency is significantly improved.
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