A rapid I-V curve generation for PV model-based solar array simulators

Photovoltaic (PV) model can be a viable alternative to the conventional look-up-table as an accurate and versatile solar array simulator (SAS) engine. In PV model-based SAS, PV model has a critical role to generate appropriate I-V characteristic of the PV panel under rapidly varying temperature and irradiation, and its calculation speed as well as accuracy are key performances. In this paper, a novel algorithm that is suitable for such a SAS engine is proposed. The suggested method adopts conjugate gradient optimization to extract PV model parameters from the changing conditions and to reconstruct the exact I-V curve very rapidly. For the verification, the proposed algorithm is compared with conventional ones which have been widely used in the PV model extraction. As a result, the proposed model shows superior calculation speed with good accuracy.