Modelling and Experimental Validation of Aging Factors of Photovoltaic Solar Cells

Photovoltaic solar energy has evolved to be a viable and popular alternative for the generation of electricity. To analyze the profitability of these renewable energy systems, computer modelling of the solar devices has become a necessary and widespread practice in the academic and industrial world. The modelling not only allows the estimation of the electric productivity but also the estimation of the amortization of a solar installation. However, aging and deterioration of photovoltaic modules have been little studied yet and when these aging effects can be an important source of power degradation on solar cells and fault generation, and thus a cause of mismatching on amortization deadlines. In this work, based on a proposed long-term behavioral generator model, the most common aging mechanisms of solar panels have been modelled and simulated. The results have been validated against a real solar medium-high power generator designed for grid connection in Spain. Results allow to measure the efficiency of these photovoltaics energy systems, get better accuracy of their amortization and estimate the power degradation range of photovoltaic modules.