Tshwane University of Technology, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa
Dusabe, D., Tshwane University of Technology, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa; Munda, J., Tshwane University of Technology, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa; Jimoh, A., Tshwane University of Technology, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa
The empirical model developed in this study uses standard specifications together with actual solar radiation and cell temperature to predict voltage-current characteristics of a photovoltaic panel under varying weather conditions. The paper focuses on the modelling of hourly cloudless solar radiation to provide the insolation on a PV module of any orientation, located at any site. The model is built in Matlab/Simulink environment to provide a tool that may be loaded in the library. It is found that the predicted solar radiation strongly agrees with the experimental data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Further, a satisfactory agreement between the predicted voltage current curves and laboratory measurements is obtained. © 2009 FEI STU.