Abstract
Due to the high dependence of photovoltaic energy efficiency on environmental conditions (temperature, irradiation...), it is quite important to perform some analysis focusing on the characteristics of photovoltaic devices in order to optimize energy production, even for small-scale users. The use of equivalent circuits is the preferred option to analyze solar cells/panels performance. However, the aforementioned small-scale users rarely have the equipment or expertise to perform large testing/calculation campaigns, the only information available for them being the manufacturer datasheet. The solution to this problem is the development of new and simple methods to define equivalent circuits able to reproduce the behavior of the panel for any working condition, from a very small amount of information. In the present work a direct and completely explicit method to extract solar cell parameters from the manufacturer datasheet is presented and tested. This method is based on analytical formulation which includes the use of the Lambert W-function to turn the series resistor equation explicit. The presented method is used to analyze commercial solar panel performance (i.e., the current-voltage–I-V–curve) at different levels of irradiation and temperature. The analysis performed is based only on the information included in the manufacturer’s datasheet.
Highlights
Today, the increasing use of renewable energy sources is a fact, but it represents a great concern of modern society, as the effects of global warming are more and more evident and have spread to almost every corner of planet Earth
It should be pointed out that a not physically possible solution for the equivalent circuit parameters, can be obtained if a value of the ideality factor too detached from the real one is chosen, as the aforementioned curvature is incompatible with the boundary conditions
In the present work a simple but accurate method to simulate the performances of a photovoltaic device for different working conditions is presented
Summary
The increasing use of renewable energy sources is a fact, but it represents a great concern of modern society, as the effects of global warming are more and more evident and have spread to almost every corner of planet Earth Some of these renewable energy sources such as wind energy [1] or both solar photovoltaic [2,3] and solar thermal [4], had an enormous development in the recent decades. Modeling of solar panels is traditionally achieved through numerical fitting to extensive experimental results This is not affordable for small users and it is not practical when a decision among different commercial solar panels/systems has to be made and only the information included in the manufacturers’ datasheets is available. Analytical methods represent a solution to this problem, as they are simpler and only require a small amount of data (frequently included in the datasheet) to model the solar panel behavior
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