Extraction of Photovoltaic Cell and Photovoltaic Module Parameters Using African Vultures Optimization Algorithm

Abstract

In order to characterize the actual electrical behavior of photovoltaic cells and photovoltaic modules, it is required to construct the equivalent circuit models effectively, and to identify the unknown model parameters properly. This improves the design, control and performance of photovoltaic systems. In this study, African vultures optimization was applied to solve the parameter extraction problem encountered in single diode- and double diode-based photovoltaic cell modeling and single diode-based photovoltaic module modeling. African vultures optimization algorithm efficiently balances the optimization process by using two different strategies in the exploration phase and four different strategies in the exploitation phase. The root mean squared error between simulated and measured output current was computed to evaluate the parameter extraction performance. In addition, the obtained results were compared with different parameter extraction methods commonly-used in the literature. It has been shown that the African vultures optimization algorithm is a stable and reliable technique for the extraction of photovoltaic cell and module parameters.