A general purpose tool for simulating the behavior of PV solar cells, modules and arrays

This paper describes the detailed implementation of a novel tool for simulating the behavior of photovoltaic devices under variable weather conditions, in which the effect of irradiance, temperature and wind speed are considered. The tool also takes into account the effect of the thermal capacitance of photovoltaic dispositives and it is suitable to work on both long-term and transient simulations. The proposed method is easily implementable in most simulation programs. In order to achieve this, a circuit-oriented model based on electrical and thermal equations is carried out. Finally, the proposed methodology is examined by comparing simulations in SABER, PSpice and SIMULIK with experimental data.