Solar irradiation estimator based on a self-calibrated reference solar cell

Authors: TOURIA HASSBOUN, LHOUSSAIN EL BAHIR, YOUNESS AITE DRISS, MUSTAPHA EL ADNANI

Abstract: In this paper we propose a concept for estimating solar irradiation based on measurements of the current, voltage, and temperature of a photovoltaic (PV) cell. The estimation of the irradiation is obtained by processing these measurements using a PV cell mathematical model combined with a PI controller. Since the PV cell current is very sensitive to the irradiance level, the principle of the method is to force the model to reproduce the same current as that measured on the cell by applying an appropriate irradiance as input, for measured temperature and voltage. The appropriate irradiance, which is the output of our estimator, is provided by the PI controller in such way that the current estimated by the model follows exactly the measured current. The PI controller ensures also self-calibration of the PV reference cell depending on the temperature changes. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been validated in a simulation and implemented in real time using the dSpace 1104 board.

Keywords: Photovoltaic, solar energy, solar cell, solar irradiation, solar cell calibration, renewable energy

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