Differential Evolution with Dual-mode mutation for parameter estimation of different photovoltaic models

In order to design a photovoltaic (PV) system having superior performance, it is necessary to ensure that the PV system parameters are estimated properly. In the recent past, it is perceived that several authors have given emphasis to the estimation of PV parameters. The problem of PV parameter estimation is formulated in the form of a single objective function expressed as root mean square error (RMSE) between the experimental current and the estimated current values of the PV model under consideration. This objective function is intended to be minimized by evolutionary approach. Although different variants of the Differential Evolution (DE) were proposed in the past, but here Differential Evolution with dual-mode mutation (DEDMM) is projected. This mutation strategy brings improvement in exploration and exploitation capability of DE resulting in better solutions. The experimental I-V datasets are taken into consideration for estimating the parameters of single-diode and double-diode based PV cell models and PV module model. The results portray the effectiveness of DEDMM as compared to other methods suggested recently for parameter estimation of different PV models.