Abstract

FERNANDEZ, Herman et al. Photovoltaic cells modelling and simulation in pscad. uct [online]. 2010, vol.14, n.55, pp.129-135. ISSN 1316-4821.

PSCAD is a program widely used in simulating power electronics systems, having a variety of models in its library: electronic components, electric machines, control elements, converters and power electronic systems, etc. Nevertheless this tool does not have a solar cell model that can be used as a library element to evaluate the performance of photovoltaic systems with power converters, storage media and regulating units. As its main objective this work presents a generic model able to represent solar panel arrays connected in series or in parallel in the PSCAD simulation language. The proposed model can be included into the PSCAD library, and accepts parameters that personalize the array type according to the application that the user is evaluating, such as number of cells connected in series and in parallel, solar cell's series and parallel resistor values and solar cell working temperature. Model application is restricted to photovoltaic cells under the same solar radiation, since in the present version partial shadowing over a subset of the cells in the array is not considered. The results generated by the proposed model are validated by comparison with those obtained by PSPICE simulation and with the characteristic values published by the solar cells manufacturer

Keywords : PSCAD; Solar Cells Modeling; Solar Cell Simulation; Photovoltaic Panels Interconnection; Photovoltaic Systems; MPPT.