Simulation study of a photovoltaic cell with increasing levels of model complexity

In this paper, different complexity levels are analyzed for modeling photovoltaic cells. The electrical circuit approach is the technique mostly used to describe photovoltaic cell behavior. Single and double diode models are two typical representations for this purpose. The parameters number necessary to represent photovoltaic cells in single and double diode models are studied in this paper and its impact on characterizing I-P and P-V curves is explored to discuss parameters role in providing more accuracy. The modeling approach allows to adequately simulate photovoltaic array systems taking into account the compromise between the accuracy and simplicity. The mathematical models are implemented in Matlab/Simulink by using the Newton-Raphson method.