Solar Cell Parameters Extraction of Photovoltaic Module Using NeIder-Mead Optimization

Solar cell modeling primarily involves the formulation of the non-linear current versus voltage (I-V) curve. Determination of its parameters plays an important role in solar cell accurate modeling. This paper presents an application of the Nelder-Mead simplex search method 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. In order to assess the effectiveness of the extracted parameters, a dynamic model has been used and compared to real measurements data of a grid connected system located in the Centre de Developpement des Energies Renouvelables (CDER) in Algiers. The extracted parameters have been tested against several static IV characteristics of the PV module collected at different operating condition. Comparative study among different parameter estimation techniques is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.