Design and development of an I-V curve tracing and electrical performance analyzing system for solar photovoltaic module

Abstract

The electrical performance of a photovoltaic solar cell is described by its current–voltage (I–V) characteristic curve, which is in turn determined by device and material properties. This work presents a system capable of tracing current-voltage (I-V) characteristic curve and analyzing electrical performance characteristics of solar photovoltaic cells as well as modules. This system is divided into two main parts; firstly the current-voltage (I-V) data with temperature of the module at that instant, when it has brought under direct or diffused sun light, has been collected form the solar photovoltaic cell or module by means of some basic electronic circuits like current and voltage sensing using simple pulsed width modulation (PWM), MOSFET switching arrangement, liquid crystal display(LCD), keypad made with three selecting switch, temperature sensor, USB serial converter etc. These data has been stored in an EEPROM. Total system has a microcontroller to complete all the tasks it is programed for. Secondly the collected data transferred through an USB to TTL transfer system to the computer where it’s going to be analyzed. To analyze the data collected from the module a handy analyzer software tool has been made in Java platform with Java programming language. Where we plot graphs of I-V and P-V characteristics curve and compare the results with the given module data. Thus long-term measurements of solar PV modules electrical performances in different operating modes and in different environments become possible through this system.