An advanced measurement equipment for the tracing of photovoltaic panel I?V curves

In this paper a measurement equipment designed to trace the I-V characteristics curves of a photovoltaic (PV) panel in a lot of working conditions is proposed. The approach exploits a microcomputer assisted DC-DC converter used as electronic load. The microcomputer also controls the voltage and current measurements process and provides connectivity with remote clients requesting the PV panel experimental data. The proposed approach does not require additional expensive equipments and it is very accurate and simple to use. Validations on commercial PV modules are presented.