Research on the Electrical Characteristics of Photovoltaic Arrays and Corresponding MPPT Simulation

Photovoltaic cells, as the primary part of a solar photovoltaic system, are a nonlinear DC power supply related to multiple parameters. The demand of increasing the generating efficiency of photovoltaic cells requires having a good understanding of their electrical characteristics. In this study, the mathematical and physical model of the photovoltaic cells was built by the means of Matlab and Simulink based on the internal principles and equivalent circuits of the photovoltaic cells. After the simulation of such practical and versatile model, it’s found that the nonlinear P-V and I-V characteristics of the photovoltaic cells, with the change of sunlight intensity and temperature, could be accurately reflected by this high simulation precision model. Furthermore, the Maximum Power Point Tracking method was proposed using the logical formula dP/dI=0 of the maximum power point of photovoltaic cells. This method can simply and fast implement the tracking for the maximum power point. Copyright © 2013 IFSA.