Innovative Model for Energy Assessment of New Crystalline Silicon Technologies Tested Under Different Climates

The performance of PhotoVoltaic (PV) modules can be assessed using several models, with the most common being the Osterwald model, which states PV power is proportional to solar irradiance. However, the models based on electrical equivalent circuits, which have a variable number of parameters affected by environmental conditions like irradiance and temperature, can be used to increase the accuracy of PV power estimation. Actually, understanding these parameters in any weather condition can help predicting PV generators’ performance with higher accuracy than commonly used analytical models. This study proposes a method for evaluating PV power and evaluates its application to 10 PV modules tested at two different installation sites (Turin, Italy, and Jaén, Spain). The devices under test have different technologies, rated power (up to 450 W) and efficiency (up to ≈23%). Such a technique is based on the determination of the single diode model parameters, obtaining normalized root mean square errors in the current-voltage curves tracing lower than 1% for any condition. Moreover, its performance is validated by comparing the energy estimation with that of most common models used in the literature. In particular, the performance of the model is excellent for the PV modules with the newest technology, achieving accuracy improvements in energy estimation higher than 70% with respect to the other models.