Performance study and evaluation of a solar PV testbed system in brunei darussalam

This paper describes an experimental setup of photovoltaic panels for performance investigation under tropical weather conditions. For this setup a dedicated data acquisition system has been designed and implemented using LabVIEW virtual instrumentation. Apart of monitoring and displaying features, the GUI also has diagnostic capabilities to assess the performance of the PV panels under test. Real-time environment data is also incorporated to measure ambient and operating temperature, irradiance, and relative humidity. A typical 95W polycrystalline panel is used for evaluation and the compared results with a circuit-based simulation model shows good correspondence. This test-bed aims to assist homeowners in assessing the quality of their solar panels.