Multi-dimension diode photovoltaic (PV) model for different PV cell technologies

Different types of photovoltaic (PV) cell technologies have been commercially used for various applications. These cell technologies can be categorized as multi-crystalline, mono-crystalline and thin film. Due to the differences in PV cell technologies, a single PV model is unable to model all the output characteristics. The single and double diode PV models have been widely used for modeling the output characteristic of a PV module. This paper introduces a generalized multi-dimension diode PV model which can be used to select the most suitable dimension for a particular PV cell technology. The results confirm that the single diode PV model is suitable for the multi-crystalline and mono-crystalline PV modules. For the thin film PV module, a multi-dimension diode PV model is required to achieve a low modeling error.