Comments on Some Transformation Methods of PV Solar Cells’ I-V Characteristics from their Implicit Forms to Explicit Ones

Bashahu, M. and Ngendakuriyo, I.

Department of Physics and Technology, Institute of Applied Pedagogy, University of Burundi, Bujumbura.

Abstract: Most of the times, an implicit form of a PV solar cell’s I-V characteristic is used in the analysis of the electrical behavior of any circuit enclosing that electronic component. That analysis aims notably to determine the conductance at different points of the characteristic and then to extract component’s model parameters such as the reverse saturation current (I_s), the ideality factor (n), the series and shunt resistances (R_s and R_sh, respectively). When numerical simulations are performed using the above mentioned form of the I-V characteristic, the process is quite slow. Explicit forms of that characteristic are in great demand, since simulations using them are about several tens fold faster than the implicit ones. References on explicit forms of PV solar cells’ I-V characteristics are rather scarce in the literature. The main objective of this work is an analysis of four selected techniques transforming those I-V characteristics from their implicit forms to explicit ones. Those techniques are namely: (i) the area’s, (ii) the generalized area’s, (iii) the trial function’s, and (iv) the Lambert W-function’s methods, respectively. The analysis is conducted notably in terms of the device operation conditions, kind of solar cell’s model and assumptions, related implicit form of the I-V characteristic, derived explicit form(s), outcomes’ expressions, method’s applications and further comments.

Keywords: Area’s methods; Extraction of solar cells’ parameters; Generalized area’s method; Lambert W-function’s method; Trial function’s method.

Pages: 399 – 408 | Full PDF Paper