Series Connected Photovoltaic Cells—Modelling and Analysis

Anas Al Tarabsheh, Muhammad Akmal and Mohammed Ghazal
Additional contact information
Anas Al Tarabsheh: Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Abu Dhabi University, 59911 Abu Dhabi, UAE
Muhammad Akmal: Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Abu Dhabi University, 59911 Abu Dhabi, UAE
Mohammed Ghazal: Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Abu Dhabi University, 59911 Abu Dhabi, UAE

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 3, 1-9

Abstract: As solar energy costs continue to drop, the number of large-scale deployment projects increases, and the need for different analysis models for photovoltaic (PV) modules in both academia and industry rises. This paper proposes a modified equivalent-circuit model for PV modules. A PV module comprises several series-connected PV cells, to generate more electrical power, where each PV cell has an internal shunt resistance. Our proposed model simplifies the standard one-diode equivalent-circuit (SEC) model by removing the shunt resistance and including its effect on the diode part of the circuit, while retaining the original model accuracy. Our proposed equivalent circuit, called here a modified SEC (MSEC), has less number of circuit elements. All of the PV cells are assumed operating under the same ambient conditions where they share the same electric voltage and current values. To ensure the simplification did not come at a reduction in the accuracy of the SEC model, we validate our MSEC model by simulating both under the same conditions, calculate, and compare their current/voltage ( I / V ) characteristics. Our results validate the accuracy of our model with the difference between the two models falling below 1%. Therefore, the proposed model can be adopted as an alternative representation of the equivalent circuit for PV cells and modules.

Keywords: photovoltaic module; equivalent-circuit; current/voltage characteristics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/371/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/3/371/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:3:p:371-:d:92313

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().