Influence of Malaysian Climate on the Efficiency of Polycrystalline Solar Cells

The performance of a solar panel is measured in terms of its efficiency at turning sunlight into electricity. This energy is highly influenced by weather variation. This research tried to find out the relationship between solar efficiency and Malaysian climate. The output current and voltage of the solar panel had been collected 24 hours non-stop within a week. These data were used to get the efficiency of solar panel. At the same time, the climate parameters had been recorded using weather station. The correlation and regression test had been done to get the mathematical relationship between these climate parameters and the solar cells efficiency. Correlation test results showed that the solar irradiance and temperature had great influenced while humidity and wind speed had low influenced on the efficiency of polycrystalline solar cells. Regression test result showed that there are a polynomial relationship between efficiency and all climate parameters.