Implementation and verification of integrated thermal and electrical models for commercial PV modules

This paper presents a novel integrated photovoltaic (PV) model that simultaneously describes both electricity characteristics and thermal dynamics of a commercial PV module. Based on the thermal and electrical characteristics of commercial PV module available from the manufacturer datasheet, the proposed PV model is implemented on the Simulink environment and verified under the standard test condition (STC) and nominal operating cell temperature (NOCT) condition. The NOTC used to validate the thermal characteristics for a commercial PV module is first addressed. The cell temperatures and output electricity characteristics of a commercial PV module are evaluated through a series of experiments at real operating conditions. Comparing with the experiment results, the proposed model is validated and proved to have a great agreement with the output characteristics of a commercial PV module. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.