Mathematical Modeling and Digital Simulation of PV Solar Panel using MATLAB Software

Global warming, exhaustion and high cost of fossil fuels dictates the exploitation of alternative sources of energy such as wind and solar energies. In addition, knowledge of the characteristic of photovoltaic (PV) panel is a prerequisite for designing and dimensioning a PV power supply. This is the reason for the development of PV panel models useful for electrical applications. This approach allows the development of new high-performances conversion systems balancing system-components and permitting the evaluation of the behavior of the entire system in various scenarios. In this paper we propose a simple method of modeling and simulation of photovoltaic panels using MATLAB software package. The method is used to determine the characteristic of PV panel and to study the influence of different values of solar radiation at different temperatures concerning performance of PV cells. Taking the effect of irradiance and temperature into consideration, the output current and power characteristic of photovoltaic module are simulated using the proposed model. Detailed modeling procedure for the circuit model is presented. The proposed model was found to be better and accurate for any irradiance and temperature variations. The proposed model can be very useful for PV Engineers, researchers and experts who require a simple, fast and accurate PV simulator to design their systems.