Simple method for I-V characterization curve for low power solar cell using arduino nano

Abstract

In general, solar cells properties were measured under standardized environment. Recent method uses a Solar Simulator or Sun Simulator to measure a solar cell characteristic by the condition of 1000 W/m2 irradiance and 25°C temperature. However, solar simulator is expensive, therefore in this paper we propose a simple I-V characterization method with microcontroller, potentiometer, and sensors to measure I-V characterization of solar cell. Our method used a microcontroller to record any detected current and voltage from sensors generated by the solar cell driven by halogen light on low power poly-Si solar cell. This method is limited by the sensor rated voltage and current, thus a higher power solar cell is possible to be measured with a higher rated voltage and a current sensor for the future development. The measured Voc and Isc of 3 Wp poly-Si solar cell have 1.94% difference in Voc and 49.1% difference in Isc against the standardized environment. This method is able to characterize a low power solar cell with slight difference on Voc and about half value of Isc compared to standardized I-V curve characterization due to the limitation of halogen lamp spectral irradiance.