Temperature dependence in modeling photovoltaic arrays

Photovoltaic (PV) array output varies with environmental conditions. In this paper, an improved algorithm is proposed to model PV arrays at temperatures different than the nominal temperature. The proposed model is validated with experimental data of Kyocera KC200GT multi-crystalline silicon solar array. The superiority of this technique is proved by computing modeling absolute error to have a maximum error as 0.98% of array short circuit current. In addition, the high accuracy of the proposed technique is proved in modeling a commercial mono-crystalline silicon solar array (Shell SP70). A graphical user interface (GUI) is also developed based on the improved approach to model PV arrays at different temperatures.