MODELLING OF CLOUDLESS SOLAR RADIATION FOR PV MODULE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

Deo Dusabe - Josiah Munda - Adisa Jimoh

   The empirical model developed in this study uses standard specifications together with actual solar radiation and cell temperature to predict voltage-current characteristics of a photovoltaic panel under varying weather conditions. The paper focuses on the modelling of hourly cloudless solar radiation to provide the insolation on a PV module of any orientation, located at any site. The model is built in Matlab/Simulink environment to provide a tool that may be loaded in the library. It is found that the predicted solar radiation strongly agrees with the experimental data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Further, a satisfactory agreement between the predicted voltage - current curves and laboratory measurements is obtained.

Keywords: solar energy, solar radiation, solar cells, photovoltaic module, modelling and simulation

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