Solar Panel Experiments Aim: Effect of Change in Irradiation On Solar Panels. Theory
Solar Panel Experiments Aim: Effect of Change in Irradiation On Solar Panels. Theory
The solar panel simulator approximates the characteristics of a typical PV cell, through an
equivalent circuit. The equivalent circuit for a typical PV cell is given below.
The ideal solar cells do not have the voltage loss and leakage currents and therefore does not
have series and parallel resistances. Using Kirchhoff’s current law on the equivalent circuit,
one can obtain:
q (V Rs I
V Rs I
I I L I o (e nkTN s
1)
RP
For an ideal solar panel, the shunt resistance is very high and series resistance is very low.
Hence, for an ideal case, third term in the equation for I is absent. The open circuit voltage
can be approximated as:
kTcell
V (ln( I L ) ln( I o ))
q
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that, the photocurrent increases with the
increase in irradiance. So, with the increase in irradiance the output current increases linearly,
whereas the output voltage increases logarithmically (see the equations of the output current
and voltage).
Procedure:
• Keep the temperature constant and Voc and Isc are also constant.
Observations:
With the increase in the irradiation levels the current drawn from the panel also increases and
vice versa is also true.
References:
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IEEE, On the Perturb-and-Observe and Incremental Conductance MPPT Methods for PV
Systems, IEEE JOURNAL OF PHOTOVOLTAICS, VOL. 3, NO. 3, JULY 2013.
[9]. Trishan Esram, Student Member, IEEE, and Patrick L. Chapman, Senior Member, IEEE,
Comparison of Photovoltaic Array Maximum Power Point Tracking Techniques‖ IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 22, NO. 2, JUNE 2007.