Experimental characterization of a thermoelectrical model of photovoltaic modules

A better understanding of the factors that affect the performance of the photovoltaic (PV) modules will improve the design, optimization, and development of them. While it is true that the main input power to the PV module is the incident solar irradiance, various optical properties of module materials vary with wavelength. A model capable of predicting this wavelength-specific behavior will allow various filtering approaches to be assessed quantitatively. In previous work, a thermoelectrical model is proposed to study the effects of the individual wavelengths on PV module performance. In this work, a method of characterizing the model is proposed; experiments are conducted on a lab-built monocrystalline silicon PV module. The results of the characterized model are shown to agree with experimental measurements.