INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH

Tarak Salmi et al., Vol.2, No.2, 2012

MATLAB/Simulink Based Modelling of Solar

Photovoltaic Cell

Tarak Salmi*, Mounir Bouzguenda**, Adel Gastli**, Ahmed Masmoudi*

*Research Unit on Renewable Energies and Electric Vehicles, National Engineering School of Sfax, Tunisia
**Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman

‡
Corresponding Author; Tarak Salmi, National Engineering School of Sfax, P.O.B: W, 3038 Sfax, Tunisia,
+96896926520,[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Received: 22.01.2012 Accepted:20.02.2012

Abstract-This paper focuses on a Matlab/SIMULINK model of a photovoltaic cell. This model is based on mathematical
equations and is described through an equivalent circuit including a photocurrent source, a diode, a series resistor and a shunt
resistor. The developed model allows the prediction of PV cell behaviour under different physical and environmental
parameters. The model can also be used to extract the physical parameters for a given solar PV cell as a function of
temperature and solar radiation. In addition, this study outlines the working principle of PV module as well as PV array. In
order to validate the developed model, an experimental test bench was built and the obtained results exhibited a good
agreement with the simulation ones.
Keywords-Matlab, SIMULINK, PV, solar cell model, solar array model, solar radiation, maximum power point

1. Introduction

The development of new energy sources is continuously

enhanced because of the critical situation of the chemical
industrial fuels such as oil, gas and others. Thus, the
renewable energy sources have become a more important
contributor to the total energy consumed in the world. In fact,
the demand for solar energy has increased by 20% to 25%
over the past 20 years [1]. The market for PV systems is
growing worldwide. In fact, nowadays, solar PV provides
around 4800 GW. Between 2004 and 2009, grid connected
PV capacity reached 21 GW and was increasing at an annual Fig.1.Photocurrent generation principle.
average rate of 60% [2]. In order to get benefit from the
application of PV systems, research activities are being Typically, a PV cell generates a voltage around 0.5 to
conducted in an attempt to gain further improvement in their 0.8 volts depending on the semiconductor and the built-up
cost, efficiency and reliability. technology. This voltage is low enough as it cannot be of
use. Therefore, to get benefit from this technology, tens of
With no pollutant emission, Photovoltaic cells convert PV cells (involving 36 to 72 cells) are connected in series to
sunlight directly to electricity. They are basically made up of form a PV module. These modules can be interconnected in
a PN junction. Figure 1 shows the photocurrent generation series and/or parallel to form a PV panel. In case these
principle of PV cells. In fact, when sunlight hits the cell, the modules are connected in series, their voltages are added
photons are absorbed by the semiconductor atoms, freeing with the same current. Nevertheless, when they are
electrons from the negative layer. This free electron finds its connected in parallel, their currents are added while the
path through an external circuit toward the positive layer voltage is the same.
resulting in an electric current from the positive layer to the
negative one. Three major families of PV cells are monocrystalline
technology, polycrystalline technology and thin film
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL of RENEWABLE ENERGY RESEARCH
Tarak Salmi et al., Vol.2, No.2, 2012

technologies. The monocrystalline and polycrystalline and Rsh, the I-V and P-V curves are generated as shown in
technologies are based on microelectronic manufacturing Fig.4.
technology and their efficiency is in general between 10%
and 15% for monocrystalline and between 9% and 12% for
polycrystalline. For thin film cells, the efficiency is 10% for
a-Si, 12% for CuInSe2 and 9% for CdTe [3]. Thus, the
monocrystalline cell that has the highest efficiency is the
focus of this paper. This paper carried out a
Matlab/SIMULINK model of monocrystalline PV cell that
made possible the prediction of the PV cell behaviour under
different varying parameters such as solar radiation, ambient
temperature, series resistor, shunt resistor, diode saturation
current, etc.
The focus of this paper is on solar cell modelling which
is discussed in section two. Section three presents the effects Fig. 3. PV cell Matlab/SIMULINK model.
of the variation of the solar radiation. In section four, the
influence of temperature on the PV cell outputs are
investigated. The effects of the series resistance have been
presented in section five. Section six focuses on the effects of
the shunt resistance. In section seven, the effects of the diode
reverse saturation current are studied. The model features
and its experimental validation are discussed in sections
eight through ten. While conclusions and future works are
presented in section eleven.

2. PV cell model

The equivalent circuit of a PV cell is shown in Fig. 2. It

Fig. 4.I-V curves and P-V curves for a given PV cell
includes a current source, a diode, a series resistance and a
shunt resistance [4, 5].
3. Effects of Solar Radiation Variation

The above model includes two subsystems: one that

calculates the PV cell photocurrent which depends on the

 
radiation and the temperature according to equation (2) [3].

I ph  I sc Ki T  298 (2)
1000
where Ki=0.0017 A/◦C is the cell's short circuit current
temperature coefficient and β is the solar radiation (W/m2).
Fig. 2.PV cell equivalent circuit.
Based on the above equation, the subsystem of Fig. 5 is

   
In view of that, the current to the load can be given as: obtained and the model simulation results are shown in Figs.
[6,7,8] 6 and 7.
 q V  Rs I  V  Rs I
I  I ph  I s  exp  1 
 
 
(1)
NKT Rsh

In this equation, Iph is the photocurrent, Is is the reverse

saturation current of the diode, q is the electron charge, V is
the voltage across the diode, K is the Boltzmann's constant, T
is the junction temperature, N is the ideality factor of the
diode, and Rs and Rsh are the series and shunt resistors of the
cell, respectively.
As a result, the complete physical behaviour of the PV
cell is in relation with Iph, Is, Rs and Rsh from one hand and
with two environmental parameters as the temperature and Fig. 5. Iph Matlab/SIMULINK subsystem for varying cell
the solar radiation from the other hand. temperature and solar radiation.

Based on equation (1), the Matlab/SIMULINK model of As it can be seen from Figs.6 and 7, the PV cell current
Fig.3 was developed. For a given radiation, temperature, Rs is strongly dependent on the solar radiation. However, the

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Tarak Salmi et al., Vol.2, No.2, 2012

voltage has a 50 mV increase as the solar radiation increased In general, for a given solar radiation, when the cell
from 400 W/m2 to 1000 W/m2. temperature increases, the open circuit voltage Voc, drops
slightly, while the short circuit current increases. This
behaviour is validated and presented in Figs. 9 and 10.

Fig.6.I-V curves for different solar radiations.

Fig.9.I-V curves for different cell temperatures.

Fig.7.P-V curves for different solar radiations.

4. Effect of Varying Cell Temperature

Fig.10.P-V curves for different cell temperatures.
The diode reverse saturation current varies as a cubic
5. Effect of Varying Rs
function of the temperature and it can be expressed as:

 T    E 
I s T   I s   exp  T  1 g
3 The series resistance of the PV cell is low, and in some

T   Tnom  N.V 
cases, it can be neglected [3]. However, to render the model
 nom  
(3)
 
suitable for any given PV cell, it is possible to vary this
t
resistance and predict the influence of its variation on the PV
where Is is the diode reverse saturation current, Tnom is the cell outputs. As seen in Figs.11 and 12, the variation of Rs
nominal temperature, Eg is the band gap energy of the affects the slope angle of the I-V curves resulting in a
semiconductor and Vt is the thermal voltage. deviation of the maximum power point.
The reverse saturation current subsystem shown in Fig.8
was constructed based on equation (3).

Fig.11.I-V curves for different Rs.

Fig. 8. Matlab/SIMULINK temperature effect subsystem on

diode reverse saturation current.

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Tarak Salmi et al., Vol.2, No.2, 2012

7. Effects of Varying Is.

The model assists in expecting the behaviour of the PV

cell for different reverse saturation currents of the diode. The
curves of Figs.15 and 16 were plotted for three different
values of Is: 100nA, 10nA and 1nA. The influence of an
increase in Is is evidently seen as decreasing the open-circuit
voltage Voc.

8. PV Module

As previously mentioned, a PV module is a connection

Fig.12.P-V curves for different Rs of tens of PV cells. Figure 17 shows the bloc diagram of
The simulation was performed for three different values Matlab/SIMULINK model of a PV module.
of Rs, namely 1mΩ, 4mΩ and 8mΩ. It was shown that higher This model contains an external control block permitting
values of Rs reduce the power output of the PV cell. an uncomplicated variation of the models’ parameters. In this
According to equation (4), the fill factor, given by equation model, 36 PV cell are interconnected in series to form one
(4), decreases as Rs increases. module. As a result, the module voltage is obtained by

FF 
multiplying the cell voltage by the cells number while the
Pmax
(4) total module current is the same as the cell’s one. The results
Voc I sc are shown in Figs.18 and 19.

6. Effect of Varying Rsh

The shunt resistance of any PV cell should be large

enough for higher output power and fill factor. In fact, for a
low shunt resistor, the PV cell current collapses more steeply
which means higher power loss and lower fill factor. These
results can be seen in Figs.13 and 14.

Fig.15.I-V curves for different Is

Fig.13.I-V characteristics for different Rsh

Fig.16.P-V curves for different Is

Fig.14.P-V curves for different Rsh Fig.17. SIMULINK model for the PV module.

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Tarak Salmi et al., Vol.2, No.2, 2012

Fig.18.I-V curves of the PV module model Fig.21.I-V curves for the PV array model

Fig.19.P-V curves of the PV module model

Fig.22.P-V curves for the PV array model
9. PV Array
10. Experimental Results and Validation
In order to get benefit from these developed models, an
array of 6 PV modules has been constructed. In fact, these In order to validate the Matlab/SIMULINK model, The
PV modules were interconnected in series and all of them are PV test bench of Fig.23 was investigated. It consists of a
connected to the external control block as shown in Fig.20. rheostat, a daystar-meter to measure the solar radiation, two
digital multi-meters and a solar panel that has the key
specifications listed in Table 1.

Fig.20. PV array model.

The PV array model was simulated similarly to the
model of the PV module and the obtained results are shown
in Figs.21 and 22, respectively.

Fig. 23. Setup of the PVL-124 solar laminate panel.

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Table 1. Electrical specifications for the test panel 5.0 125

Current (A)
Iexp Pexp

Power(W)
Solar Laminate PVL-Series Model: PVL-124 Pmax=99.5 W
4.0 100
Maximum power 124 W
Voltage at Pmax 30 V 3.0 75
Current at Pmax 4.1 A
Open circuit voltage 42 V 2.0 50
Short circuit current 5.1 A
1.0 25
The Matlab/SIMULINK model was evaluated for the
PVL-124 solar panel. The results are shown in Fig.24. On the Voc=40 V
0.0 0
other hand, the experimental results for a solar radiation of
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
540 W/m2 are shown in Fig. 25.
Voltage (V)
The I-V and P-V simulation and experimental results
show a good agreement in terms of short circuit current, open Fig. 25.PVL-124 solar laminate panel experimental results.
circuit voltage and maximum power.
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