New method for photovoltaic solar cell physical parameters extraction

Photovoltaic energy is one of the most important renewable energies. This type of energy, unlike other energy sources, is clean, safe, and abundant. The photovoltaic solar energy is based on the conversion of sunlight into direct current by solar cells. In order to increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic conversion and for a better understanding of the solar cell behavior, an accurate knowledge of the cell physical parameters is required. In this work, the solar cell is considered as a generator and the one-diode equivalent circuit is retained. This electronic circuit modeling the solar cell contains a diode with its reverse saturation current and its ideality factor, parasitic series and shunt resistances and a photocurrent generator. In this paper, a new physical parameters extraction method is presented, for the first time to our knowledge, which is based on the current-voltage characteristics and on the analytical expression of the output voltage given in term of the Lambert W function. This method gives all the physical parameters without any approximation or introduction of initial values. To test the efficiency of the presented method, a comparative study with other extraction methods is done. The obtained results are in good agreement.