A Simple and Portable Electronic Load Aided Photovoltaic Characteristic Curves Plotter (PVCCP)

This paper assists in designing a simple and portable photovoltaic (PV) plotting system which can be used forcomputation of load at which maximum power would be dissipated and obtain the I-V and P-V characteristic curvesat different load and weather conditions. The proposed method uses an electronic load that acts as a variable dcload which aids in sweeping the voltage that facilitates to acquire the characteristics of a PV module to check itsfunctionality at any weather condition. The prevailing systems built are interfaced with personal computing systemswhich use simulation software to show real-time curve of a PV Module. These systems can be used to compare realtime curve to that of curves provided by the manufacturer which are stored in their data base. But these systems arenot handy for the researchers or on-site engineers who are willing to study a given PV module. This developedgadget is a handy one and could serve as first hand information to PV farm site engineers.