Parameters estimation method for photovoltaic modules

This paper proposes an accurate parameter estimation method for the single-diode electrical model of PV modules. Based on the single-diode model, the aim of the proposed method is to find the five unknown parameters that guarantee the minimum absolute error between the P-V curves generated by the electrical model and provided by the manufacturers´ data sheets for different external conditions. The proposed method presents the following advantages: (a) it estimates the parameters based on the P-V curves provided by the manufacturers data sheets (does not depend on experimental curves); (b) some restrictions are imposed on each parameter of the model to preserve their physical meaning; (c) the stop criterion of the method is based on the minimization of the error between P-V curves instead of I-V curves. In order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, a comparison with some popular methods in the literature is carried out using both types of P-V curves: those obtained by manufacturers´ data sheets and those extracted experimentally in laboratory.