Efficient performance testing for PV array sets using capacitor charging method

The longevity and efficiency of PV panels are drastically affected by the weather and environmental conditions, such as temperature, humidity and wind speed, etc. To check the efficiency of PV panel, I-V curve tracing comes into picture, which can be further verified by statistical and mathematical analysis. In this work, a simple and short duration tracing of PV characteristics is implemented using capacitor charging method. This study incorporates the tracing of 4 × 1 PV array (four modules each rated 250 W in series) characteristics under different conditions. The characteristics were simulated in MatLab/Simulink, having uniform insolation conditions and partial shaded conditions using electronic load method (adding RC as a load). Furthermore, the value of capacitor was varied to find an optimal value and thus using the capacitor charging method to trace the characteristics in a better way.