Investigation of the Performance of CIS Photovoltaic Modules under Different Environmental Conditions

Kandil M. Kandil, Majida S. Altouq, Asma M. Al-asaad, Latifa M. Alshamari, Ibrahim M. Kadad, Adel A. Ghoneim

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DOI: 10.4236/sgre.2011.24043                

Abstract

This work investigates the effects of temperature and radiation intensity on the parameters of a copper indium diselenide (CIS) photovoltaic module. The module performance parameters are determined from calculated module parameters. An outdoor experimental setup is installed to carryout a series of I-V curve measurements under different irradiance and temperature conditions for the module. A numerical model which considers the effect of series and shunt resistances is developed to evaluate the different parameters of PV modules. Orthogonal distance regression (ODR) algorithm is adapted for fitting I-V measurements and extracting module parameters from I-V measurements. The values of module parameters, series resistance R_s, shunt resistance R_sh, diode ideality factor n and reverse saturation current I_o determined from I-V measurements at different irradiation intensity and temperature range are in good agreement with the corresponding parameters obtained from the developed numerical model. The module parameters extracted from I-V measurements are employed to calculate the module performance parameters, i.e. open circuit voltage V_oc, fill factor FF and module efficiency η at different irradiation intensity and temperature range. Present results indicate that the largest drop in open circuit voltage V_oc due to about 20℃ increase in temperature is approximately 8.8% which is not compensated for by the relatively small increase in short circuit current, (2.9% in Isc), resulting in a reduction in maximum power of about 6.3%. Results let us conclude that the shunt resistance R_Sh increases with radiation at low radiation values (< 400 W/m²). As radiation increases at high radiation values (> 400 W/m²), R_Sh begins to decease sharply and dramatically. Also, as the light intensity incident on the solar module increases, the series resistance and the output voltage decrease. When the irradiance intensity increases, the series resistance decreases but with a very low rate at the two studied temperatures ranges. The low rate decrease of R_s is found to have little effect on module performance in comparison with the significant change of other module parameters. The ideality factor n and saturation current Io decrease first sharply in the low range of radiation intensity (<400 W/m²) and this decrease becomes smaller for irradiance values greater than 400 W/m². The previous observations and conclusions regarding the module parameters R_Sh, R_S, n and I_o obtained at 20℃ observed again at 40℃ but there is a great difference between the peak values of R_Sh at both temperature levels. Present results also show that module efficiency decreases with increasing irradiance intensity due to the combined effect of both V_oc and FF.

Keywords

PV Module, Module Parameters, Series Resistance, Shunt Resistance, Ideality Factor

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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