In this paper, a comprehensive study is carried out on the solar photovoltaic (PV) array topologies under diagonally shading scenario. The aim of extensive analysis is to investigate the power mismatch losses in PV array under non-uniform irradiations. The partial shading affects not only power but also exhibits extreme non-linearity along with multiple maximum power points on P-V and I-V characteristics. The investigation is based on designing of the optimal layout of PV modules in a array to extract maximum power under partial shading conditions (PSCs). In this context, a novel structure (NS) of PV array is designed and compared with the classical configurations such as total cross-tied (TCT), hybrid series parallel -total cross-tied (SP-TCT), bridge link-total cross tied (BL-TCT) and bridge link-honey comb (BL HC) under considered shadowing scenario. The modeling of all the considered PV array configurations has been done in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The performance of proposed NS configuration is found superior for some cases of shading effect. NS configuration of PV array has minimum power losses and improved fill factor (FF) as compared to others under PSC5. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.