Solar cell parameters identification using hybrid Nelder-Mead and modified particle swarm optimization

Solar cell modelling primarily involves the formulation of the non-linear current versus voltage (I-V) curve. Determination of parameters plays an important role in solar cell accurate modelling. This paper presents an application of the hybrid Nelder-Mead simplex search method and modified Particle Swarm Optimization technique for identifying the parameters of solar cell and photovoltaic module models. The proposed technique is used to identify the unknown model parameters, namely, the generated photocurrent, saturation current, series resistance, shunt resistance, and ideality factor that govern the current-voltage relationship of a solar cell. A measurement data of 57mm diameter commercial (R.T.C. France) silicon solar cell and a module consisting of 36 polycrystalline silicon cells (Photowatt-PWP 201) are used to test and verify the consistency of accurately estimating various parameters. Comparative study among different parameter estimation techniques is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Furthermore, to verify the accurateness of the proposed technique, an experimental test bench unit is built using 72 mono-crystalline silicon cells (HIP-210NKHB5-2 module) on different environment conditions. (C) 2016 AIP Publishing LLC.