Evaluation of methods to extract parameters from current–voltage characteristics of solar cells

An evaluation of methods is represented to extract parameters from the current–voltage (I–V) characteristics of solar cells. This evaluation includes five aspects: applicability, convergence, stability, calculation speed, and error on various types of I–V data. Six current popular extraction methods are discussed and evaluated in this work. We find that the widely adopted method using the reciprocals of slope at two points is the fastest and simplest approach to estimating resistances, but it is an incomplete method to obtain the other parameters. Of the five complete methods, the Ishibashi–Kimura method shows the best accuracy (4.5% average error) while having bad applicability. Generally speaking, the Lambert W-function method is the best comprehensive method with good accuracy, applicability, and convergence, though the calculation speed is relatively lower than the other four methods. 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved