Gradient-Based Optimizer for Parameter Extraction in Photovoltaic Models

Solar radiation is increasingly used as a clean energy source, and photovoltaic (PV) panels that contain solar cells (SCs) transform solar energy into electricity. The current-voltage characteristics for PV models is nonlinear. Due to a lack of data on the manufacturer’s datasheet for PV models, there are several unknown parameters. It is necessary to accurately design the PV systems by defining the intrinsic parameters of the SCs. Various methods have been proposed to estimate the unknown parameters of PV cells. However, their results are often inaccurate. In this article, a gradient-based optimizer (GBO) was applied as an efficient and accurate methodology to estimate the parameters of SCs and PV modules. Three common SC models, namely, single-diode models (SDMs), double-diode models (DDMs), and three-diode models (TDMs) were used to demonstrate the capacity of the GBO to estimate the parameters of SCs. The proposed GBO algorithm for estimating the optimal values of the parameters for various SCs models are applied on the real data of a 55 mm diameter commercial R.T.C-France SC. Comparison between the GBO and other algorithms are performed for the same data set. The smallest value of the error between the experimental and the simulated data is achieved by the proposed GBO. Also, high closeness between the simulated P-V and I-V curves is achieved by the proposed GBO compared with the experimental.