ELECTRICAL PARAMETERS ESTIMATION OF SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC MODULE
1 I. Mustapha; B. U. Musa1; M. K. Dikwa2 and M. Abbagana1
1Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria
2Department of Computer Engineering, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria
E-mail:ibrahimmassa@yahoo.com, musa_bu@yahoo.com, mkdikwa@gmail.com, moduabbagana@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
Environmental Weather conditions such as ambient temperature and solar irradiance have significant impact on predicting I-V and P-V characteristics of solar PV modules. Electrical parameters of solar PV modules at site of installation differ from those provided by the manufacturer due to variation in environmental conditions such as solar irradiance and ambient temperature. This paper estimates electrical parameters of a monocrystalline solar photovoltaic module (SW 250) with respect to Maiduguri weather conditions. A simple one-diode mathematical model was implemented using MATLAB script which predicts the I-V and P-V characteristics of the solar PV module based on Local Operating Conditions (LOC) i.e Maiduguri environmental weather conditions. Simulation results confirmed that electrical parameters at LOC differ slightly with that provided by the manufacturer at Standard Test Conditions (STC) and Nominal Operating Cell Temperatures (NOCT). The results show that the short circuit current and the peak current at LOC are 8.7% and 9.5% less than that at NOCT respectively, while the open circuit voltage and the peak voltage at LOC differed by 15% and 7.5% to that at NOCT respectively. The maximum power at LOC is 17.5% less than that provided by the manufacturer at NOCT. Thus the photovoltaic module exhibited good performance in the region under study.
Keywords- Photovoltaic module, short circuit current, irradiance, temperature, open circuit voltage