A Behavioral Model for Solar Cells With Transient Irradiation and Temperature Assessment

The time to market of maximum power point tracking circuits for solar cells depends on the time of transient simulations. But, the traditional tools use a nonlinear resistor model for the solar cells. The question is if it is possible to use another nonlinear relationship to improve the convergence features. This paper presents a new method for modeling a solar cell, considering temperature and irradiation changes and an improved convergence performance. In this model, the solar cell's current-voltage (I-V) characteristics for three irradiation and two temperature conditions are required, showing a feasible procedure. The proposed model is fitted to three commercial solar cells exhibiting a maximum average error of 2.51 percent. It is tested in a transient analysis converging to the expected values in a maximum power point tracking circuit.