Modeling of PV Module with Consideration of

Environmental Factors
Nand Kishor, Member, IEEE, Marcelo Gradella Villalva, Soumya Ranjan Mohanty, Member, IEEE,
Ernesto Ruppert

AbstractThis paper discusses the modeling of single-diode

photovoltaic cell to estimate the maximum power with respect to
changes in environmental factors that effects its efficiency
performance. The parameters, i.e. resistances for the modeling of
PV cell are determined for nonlinear I-V characteristics to
replicate the maximum power point. These values are determined
at various environmental factors like; dust, solar radiation
intensity, shadow, temperature and wind velocity.
Index TermsPV array, modeling, maximum power point

I. NOMENCLATURE

I0
I photo ,cell

Diode saturation current

T0
Tn

Actual temperature in K

G0

Solar radiation on the cell surface in

Gn
KI
KV
Ns
Vt

Nominal solar radiation in

Photon current

Nominal temperature in K

W / m2

W / m2

Current coefficient
Voltage coefficient
Number of series cells of the module
Thermal voltage of the cell
II. INTRODUCTION

HOTOVOLTAIC resource among all the renewables is

considered to be increasingly important for power
generation in last few decades. This has resulted not only
decreased dependence on fossil fuel but also in emission of
greenhouse gases. Photovoltaic for power generation is
considered ideal resource in the distributed generation system,
which are located at or near to the load point.
A single PV cell being too small for practical power
application is usually connected as series-parallel combination
Nand Kishor is with Department of Electrical Engineering, Motilal Nehru
National Institute of Technology Allahabad-211004, India (e-mail:
nandkishor@mnnit.ac.in).
S. R. Mohanty is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Motilal
Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad-211004, India (e-mail:
soumyaigit@gmail.com).
Marcelo Gradella Villalva and Ernesto Ruppert are with the School of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Campinas, Brazil,
(e-mails: mvillalva@gmail.com, ruppert@fee.unicamp.br)

to give a required voltage and current in so called PV module.

This PV module forms a series-parallel combination to work
as PV array. The DC output is converted into AC at standard
frequency through an inverter. The PV system application can
be as grid connected, stand alone or hybrid.
The PV cell/module output is highly nonlinear and its
simplified form model as a constant voltage source or a
current controlled voltage source is often not practicable in
field. Over the years, several models have been proposed.
There exists three basic types of PV system models based on
(i) PV array characteristics [1-3], (ii) inverter structure
characteristics [4-7], (iii) overall PV system [8-9]. The
nonlinear PV array characteristics which varies not only with
temperature and solar intensity, but also with other
environmental factors like, dust and wind velocity still
remains a major challenge to model. It is important to
understand the PV module/array characteristics for effective
installation under all weather conditions.
In the past, researchers have already studied the
characteristics of PV module and the factors that influence
their performance [10-13]. Walker [10] proposed a MATLAB
based model of PV module for study of temperature, solar
intensity and load variation. The influence of partial shading
effect was discussed in [11-13]. A fast MPPT algorithm for
tracking the maximum under fast changing environmental
conditions is investigated in [14]. The authors have considered
study for rapidly changing solar radiation. A theoretical model
to estimate the solar cell performance degradation due to dust
accumulation is carried out in [15].
Recently an analytical approach to determine the PV cell
parameters, i.e. resistances by adjustment of I-V equation
with experimental characteristics was suggested in [16].
This paper discusses the modeling of PV cell/array based on
the approach mentioned in [16] for various environmental
factors that affect the output performance.

III. SINGLE DIODE PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL MODEL

Without much emphasis given on physics of how the PV cell
transforms the solar photons into direct current power, this
section starts with modeling concept of single diode PV cell.
The standard PV cell is represented as a current source in
parallel with a single diode. The equivalent circuit diagram is
shown in Fig. 1. The output, I photo ,cell is directly proportional
to amount of solar incident on the PV cell. It is the diode that
determines the shape of I-V characteristics of a PV cell. A

more detailed model can be represented by inclusion of

following:
Temperature dependence of the diode saturation current, I 0

Rs

I d ,cell

Temperature dependence of the photon current, I photo ,cell

Vd

Series resistance, Rs that represents the internal losses

Shunt resistance, Rsh in parallel with diode to take into
account leakage current to the ground
Diode quality factor, a
Applying KCL:
Vd
I pv ,cell = 0
Rsh

I pv = I photo , cell I d , cell

(1)
(2)

Where,

qV
I d , cell = I 0, cell exp
akT

(3)

The complete model of PV module should include the effect

due to series-parallel combination of each PV cells. Thus the
above equation is expressed as:

q (V + I pv Rs ) V + I pv Rs
1
I 0 exp

aVt
Rsh

Where I SC = I

Rsh

Fig. 1: Detailed circuit equivalent of a PV cell.

A. Improvement in PV model

I photo ,cell I d ,cell

I pv = I SC

I PV ,cell

I photo ,cell

photo , cell

N p , I 0 = I 0,cell N p ,

(4)

Vt = N s kT q .

(5)

Where, I photo , cell ,0 is the photon generated current at 250 C and

1000W / m 2 , T = T0 Tn .
The temperature dependence of diode saturation current I 0
can be expressed as:
3

qEg 1 1
T
I 0 = I 0, n n exp

ak Tn T0
T0

(6)

I pv Voc , n / Rsh

V
exp oc ,n
Vt aN s

I SC , n + K I T

exp (VOC , n + KV T / aVt ) 1

(8)

The authors [16] have proposed an approach for iterative

solution to determine the resistance, Rs and Rsh which gives
the maximum power point on the I-V curve.

The influence of solar radiation, cell temperature, dust,

shadow and wind is important to estimate the performance
under all weather conditions. The photo current I photo ,cell is
directly proportional to solar radiation (5). In fact, PV cell
performance does not degrade significantly from full sun shine
to partial cloud conditions. The variation of saturation current
as a function of temperature is described by (8). The
deposition of dust particles on the glazing surface of PV cells
significantly decreases the performance. Similarly, wind
velocity has an important impact on cell performance drop.
High wind speeds lead to high dust accumulation on a cell,
resulting into sharp decrease performance.
The dust influence on the PV cell can be expressed as:

I pv d
I mp = I mp ,0

I pv

(9)

An empirical relation that provides the actual PV module

temperature T0 as a function of nominal temperature Tn , solar

Where, I 0,n is the nominal saturation current given by:

I 0,n =

I0 =

IV. MODELING WITH ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

The photon generated current of the PV cell depends

linearly on the solar radiation and is also determined by the
temperature according to:
G
I photo ,cell , n (Tn ) = I photo , cell ,0 (T0 ) + K1T 0
Gn

A considerable effort is being put into the development of

robust mathematical model for PV with low computational
cost so as to take into account the variation of output with the
weather conditions.
The improvement over (6) that takes into temperature
dependency of saturation current with current and voltage
coefficients K I and KV is given as [16]:

(7)

radiation G0 and wind velocity can be formulated as:

Tn T0
2
1000 = 0.0712 ( wv ) 2.411( wv ) + 32.96
G

(10)

500

400
300
200
100
0

200
180
160
140
Cell power [W]

600

Array current [A]

Array power [W]

for wind velocity, wv < 18 m / s.

Series resistances of PV cells and diodes is temperature
dependent and increases with temperature increase,
0.65 % K 1 [17]. Thus it is very necessary to have PV module
being modeled with consideration of environmental factors.

120
100
80
60

40
3

20

0
0

50

100

150

Array voltage [V]

(a)

50

100

10

15
20
Cell voltage [V]

(a)

P-V characteristics.

150

Array voltage [V]

25

30

P-V and I-V characteristics at 250 C.

500

400
300
200
100
0

7
Cell current [A]

Array current [A]

Array power [W]

8
600

4
3
2
1

50

100

Array voltage [V]

(b)

150

6
5
4
3

50

100

150

Array voltage [V]

P-V and I-V characteristics at 500 C.

0
0

Fig. 2: Adjusted curves at different temperatures on EN2060.

10

15
20
Cell voltage [V]

25

30

(b) I-V characteristics.

The study in the paper uses the parameters of solar PV

module, EN2060 and Kyocera KC200GT. The parameters are
given in Appendix. Figure 2 shows the adjusted curves of
solar PV module EN2060 at two different temperatures. The
effect of dust particles on Kyocera KC200GT solar module is
shown in Fig. 3. It is noted that open circuit voltage remains
unchanged, while the cell current has decreased noticeably,
resulting into reduction in maximum power point too. The
same study for changes in solar radiation intensity is
represented in Fig. 4. In case of lowered solar radiation, there
is slight decrease in open circuit voltage with respect to
reduction in value of short circuit current. Next the influence
of variation in wind velocity on I-V and P-V characteristics is
shown in Fig. 5. As observed, the variation in wind velocity in
the range of 7 to 18 m/sec does not significantly affect the
performance of PV module. The maximum power point
(MPP) remains almost the same. The determined values of
resistances which adjust the PV curve to the experimental one
is given in Table I. The series resistance increases with higher
dust factor and shadow effects. On the other hand, its value
decreases on reduced solar radiation.

Fig. 3: Effect of dust deposition on PV module output on KC200GT.

200
180
160
140
Cell power [W]

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0

10

15
20
Cell voltage [V]

25

30

(a) P-V characteristics.

Fig. 4: Effect of solar radiation variation on PV module output.

TABLE I

EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

ON RESISTANCES IN PV MODEL.

Cell current [A]

(a) Dust effect:

Parameter

5
4

Rs ,max

Rs

d= 0.0
0.86728

d= 0.2
1.0841

d= 0.4
1.4454

0.23

0.28

0.37

G= 0.0
0.8672

G=0.2
1.084

G=0.4
1.4454

0.23

0.21

0.15

G= 0.0
0.8672

G=0.25
1.1563

G=0.5
1.7345

0.23

0.38

0.76

250 C
0.86728

500 C
0.8583

750 C
0.8495

0.23

0.41

0.63

18 m/sec
0.862726

13 m/sec
0.862361

10 m/sec
0.861531

0.32

0.33

0.34

(b) Solar radiation intensity effect:

1
0

10

15

20

25

Parameter

30

Cell voltage [V]

Rs ,max

Rs

(b) I-V characteristics.

Fig. 4: (continuation) Effect of solar radiation
variation on PV module output.

(c) Shadow effect:

200

Parameter

180

Rs ,max

160

Rs

Cell power [W]

140
120

(c) Temperature effect:

100
80

Parameter

60

Rs ,max

40

Rs

20
0
0

10

15
20
Cell voltage [V]

25

30

35

(d) Wind effect:

Parameter

Rs ,max

Cell current [A]

Rs

6
5
4

VI. CONCLUSION

3
2
1
0
0

10

15
20
Cell voltage [V]

25

30

35

The paper presented the determination of resistances of PV

cell with adjustment of characteristics that correspond to
maximum power point. The influential environmental factors
that affect the PV module performance were considered in the
study. The study was carried out at parameters of two different
commercially available PV modules.

Fig. 5: Effect of wind variation on PV module output.

VII. APPENDIX
Parameter

EN2060

KC200GT

Short-circuit current at 250C

Open circuit voltage at 250C
Current at MPP
Voltage at MPP

5.45 A
22.2 V
4.95 A
17.2 V

8.21 A
32.9 V
7.61 A
26.3 V

VIII. REFERENCES
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[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]

[6]
[7]
[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]

[13]
[14]

[15]
[16]
[17]

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IX. BIOGRAPHIES
Nand Kishor (M 2006) Nand Kishor received BE in
Electrical Engineering and M. Tech in Energy

Management in 1996 and 1999 respectively. He received Ph.D. degree from

Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India in 2006. Currently he serves as
Assistant Professor in department of electrical engineering, Motilal Nehru
National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India. He has interest in field of
hydro power plant control, control system and artificial intelligence
applications of power system, and integration of renewable systems.
Marcelo Gradella Villalva was born in Campinas,
So Paulo, Brazil, in 1978. He received the B.Sc. and
M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering in 2002 and
2005, respectively, from the University of Campinas
(UNICAMP), Brazil, where he is currently working
toward the Ph.D. degree. His current research
interests include active power filters, modeling and
control of electronic converters, photovoltaic energy
systems, distributed generation, and artificial
intelligence applied to power electronics
Soumya Ranjan Mohanty received the Ph.D. degree from Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India. Currently he is with the Department of
Electrical Engineering, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology,
Allahabad, India. His research area includes distributed generations, digital
signal processing applications in power system relaying and power quality.
Ernesto Ruppert was born in Jundia, So Paulo, Brazil.He received the
B.Sc.,M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University
of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil, in 1971, 1974, and 1982,
respectively. He was engaged as a project engineer and/or consultant, in
Brazil and abroad, for several large companies such
as Itaipu, Petrobras, General Electric, Alstom, Copel,
CPFL, and Elektro. Since 1972, he has been with the
UNICAMP as a Professor and Researcher. He is
currently a Full Professor and coordinates several
research projects with private companies and public
institutions in Brazil. His current research interests
include power electronics, superconductor current
limiters, electrical power systems, distributed
generation, electric machines, and motor drives. He
has authored or coauthored many technical papers published in international
journals and conferences.