Assessment of various parametric effects on the performance of a commercial grade photovoltaic solar panel

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kettering University, 1700 University Avenue, Flint, MI 48504, USA

^* Corresponding author: sdas@kettering.edu

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of an integrated photovoltaic solar panel model which includes all the necessary parameters in order to simulate and analyze using Matlab/Simulink software. The integrated photovoltaic model is validated with Matlab/Simulink simulation for a commercially available 100W photovoltaic solar panel module. Using the commercial solar panel specifications, such as solar irradiation, panel temperature, etc. the integrated model solved with Matlab/Simulink returns an I-V and P-V performance characteristics under various conditions which enabled detailed analysis, assessment of parametric effect on the performance of the solar panel. According to the model simulation results for a commercial RNG-100D solar panel, it was found that panel performance was mostly affected by the variations of solar radiation/insolation, panel surface temperature, series resistance, shunt resistance and band gap energies of the semiconductor materials. The commercial solar panel simulation results show that a photovoltaic panel output power reduces as module temperature decreases. Taking the effect of sunlight irradiance and cell temperature into consideration, the output current and power characteristics of PV model are simulated and results can be optimized using the proposed model. The integrated model enables the dynamics of PV power system to be easily simulated, analyzed, and optimized.