Modeling of Electrical and Thermal Behaviors of Photovoltaic Panels Using Cellular Automata Approach

In this paper we propose a new approach to evaluate electrical performances and temperature field for standard photovoltaic (PV) panels. The model is based on two-component cellular automata (CA) that describe the dynamics and behavior of a solar cell. The first component represents the evolution and distribution of the temperature in PV panels and the second consists of the electrical output characteristics of the solar cells. The coupling of these two-components allows us to simulate numerically the operation mode of solar cells according to four defined states: direct mode, inverse mode, hot spot mode and failure mode in order to compute the generated electrical power. This model is adapted to the case of uniform and non-uniform irradiation. Some simulations and experimental results illustrate our approach.