Compact Electrothermal Macromodeling of Photovoltaic Modules

This brief presents an original compact electrothermal macromodel of a photovoltaic module composed of a large number of series-connected solar cells. The model is able to properly incorporate the effect of a uniform temperature increase over the module as well as the presence of temperature gradients along the cells. It is shown that the proposed macromodel allows one to perform a precise electrothermal analysis of the solar system with a conventional electrical simulator like Spice.