A Novel Computational Model for Organic PV Cells and Modules

This paper presents a detailed single-diode based computational PV model for organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. These cells employ organic semiconductor materials, and while they cheaper and lighter than conventional PV cells, they suffer of low fill-factor and cannot be described by conventional models. The mathematical model of the OPV cells and the calculation of its parameters are described in the first part of the paper. Then the calculation of model parameters for PV cells is outlines and implementation of the model in MATLAB is presented. Simulation results are compared with outdoor test data and indicate that the proposed model is able to duplicate the behavior of the OPV cells accurately, with a maximum error of 3.9%. Following this result, further validation is carried out for a larger module including 512 cells for two different days, with a maximum error of 5.9%, thus confirming the accuracy and scalability of the proposed model.