A simple Photovoltaic simulator based on a one-diode equivalent circuit model

This paper proposes a simple circuit-based Photovoltaic (PV) simulator for testing Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT). The main advantage of proposed simulator is that being able to perform with low cost instead of the expensive commercial solar array simulators. In summary, the structure of the simulator is very simple due to not requirement extra components and complex control circuits, it only requires a few basic components available for all laboratories. The I-V and P-V characteristics of the proposed simulator were obtained experimentally and simulated on MATLAB/Simulink. The characteristics have shown in agreement with actual PV output characteristics. Therefore, the proposed simulator can be used instead of real photovoltaic modules or commercial solar array simulators for MPPT studies.