PROCESS MODEL

Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 20(6) 11541160 (2012)

A Real-time Modeling of Photovoltaic Array*

WANG Wei (), LI Ning ()** and LI Shaoyuan ()

Department of Automation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Key Laboratory of System Control and Information
Processing, Ministry of Education of China, Shanghai 200240, China
Abstract This paper mainly aims at the modeling problem of the photovoltaic (PV) array with a 30 kW PV
grid-connected generation system. An iterative method for the time-varying parameters is proposed to model a plant
of PV array. The relationship of PV cell and PV array is obtained and the solution for PV array model is unique. The
PV grid-connected generation system is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method by comparing the calculated values with the actual output of the system.
Keywords photovoltaic array, modeling, incident angle of the sun, radiation intensity

INTRODUCTION

With the decrease of existing energy and the deterioration of ecological environment, it is urgent to
explore new clean energies. Solar energy has been the
focus of energy plan in most countries. Studies on
photovoltaic (PV) power generation systems in different countries are beyond count. The PV array is
considered as the core component in the photovoltaic
power generation system. Its modeling is the basis of
various studies and with great significance. The study
of PV array model is on its volt-ampere characteristic.
The inputs to the model are measurements of solar
irradiation, temperature of solar panels and voltage of
PV array, while the output is the current of PV array.
For PV systems, it is important to make clear
three basic concepts: PV cell, PV module and PV array.
PV cell is an element that transforms the solar energy
to electrical energy directly. PV module is a group of
PV cells, which can provide certain output power with
some combination (in series and in parallel) according
to application requirements or industry standard. PV
array has a variety of sizes, consisting of a number of
PV modules in accordance with the size and scale of a
PV power plant. Normally, the model of PV cell is the
basis for the modeling of PV array. According to the
PV cell model and its arrangement, the PV array

(a) Ideal model

model can be obtained. The simplest PV cell model

(ideal model) [Fig. 1 (a)], composed of a light current
source and a parallel diode, has three unknown parameters [1]. The ideal model is very simple, but its
accuracy is low. With slight improvement, the
RS-model [Fig. 1 (b)] adds a series resistance to the
ideal model [2]. Although the accuracy is improved, the
unknown parameters are increased to four, so that the
model is more complicated. When a parallel resistor is
added to the RS-model, the RP-model [Fig. 1 (c)] is obtained. Currently, RP-model, also called five-parameter
model, is the most widely used model and most studies
on the PV array modeling are based on this model [3].
The five-parameter model, as its name suggests,
has five unknown parameters. It is so difficult to determine these parameters that the model cannot be applied
directly in practical projects. Some algorithms have
been proposed to apply this model to engineering calculation, but they have a common short-coming: the
precision is not high. In these methods, the parameters
are treated as fixed values [4], which is inappropriate,
because their values will change with temperature and
solar irradiation, and affects the accuracy of model.
This study aims at the PV array modeling. The expression for PV array model is obtained from mechanism analysis. The parameters of the model are estimated
by using an iterative method. The model is used to a

(b) RS-model

(c) RP-model

Figure 1 Three models for a PV cell

Received 2012-05-28, accepted 2012-07-31.
* Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61233004, 61074061), the State Key Development Program
for Basic Research of China (2013CB035500), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China
(2011AA040901), and Key Project of Ministry of Railways of China (J2011J004).
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ning_li@sjtu.edu.cn

Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

practical PV grid-connected generation system to test

its validation. In the last part, the position of the sun is
needed to calculate its incident angle on the PV module
surface and the radiation intensity measured by sensor
is transformed to the actual values of the cell panel.
2

that the photovoltaic cells composed of PV modules are

the same and derive the model for PV array (module).
For the PV array as shown in Fig. 2, the following formula can be obtained:
I mod (t ) = N P I (t )

Vmod (t ) = NSVD (t ) NS I (t ) RS (t )

V (t ) = Vmod (t )

NS
Substituting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1), we obtain

MODELING OF PV ARRAY

The PV array model is based on the PV cell model

based on the mechanism analysis for PV cell. According to the PV cell model and its arrangement, the expression of PV array model can be obtained. A method
to obtain the parameters of PV array is proposed.
2.1

Mechanism analysis

2.1.1 PV cell model

Figure 1 shows the three models for PV cell. The
five-parameter model is used as example to explain
the calculation process [5, 6].

V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
I (t ) = I PV (t ) I 0 (t ) exp
1
a (t )VT

V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
(1)

RP (t )

Eq. (1) represents the behavior of a PV cell. In order

to emphasize the time-varying characteristic, the
time-varying parameters are written as functions of t,
though their expressions may not be obtained. The
time-varying characteristic is from the time-varying
inputs, temperature and solar irradiation. In Eq. (1),
IPV(t) is the light generated current, I0(t) is the reverse
saturation current of the diode, a(t) is the impact factor
of the diode, VT is a parameter of the diode, RS(t) is
the series resistance, RP(t) is the parallel resistance, q
is the electron charge (constant value of 1.61019 C).
2.1.2 PV array model
A PV array (module) is composed of a lot of PV
cells connected in series and in parallel. We assume

1155

(2)

I mod (t ) = N P

NS

Vmod (t ) + N I mod (t ) RS (t )
I (t ) I (t ) exp
P
1
0

PV

a
(
t
)
V
N
(
t
)
T S

NS
Vmod (t ) +
I mod (t ) RS (t )
NP
NS
RP (t )
NP

(3)
Eq. (3) is the model of PV array.
2.2

Estimation of model parameters

There five unknown parameters in the fiveparameter model is I PV (t ) , I 0 (t ) , a(t ) , RS (t ) and

RP (t ) . Under normal circumstance, the opening voltage

VOCS , short-circuit current ISC , and current I mpsc and
voltage Vmpsc at the maximum power point, measured
under standard conditions, are given by the manufacturer. They are (VOCS , 0) , 0, ISC and (Vmpsc , I mpsc ) . It
is easy to calculate I PV (t ) and I 0 (t ) according to
(VOCS , 0) and (0, ISC ) , but it is not easy to decide

Figure 2 PV array

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Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

other three unknowns. From above analysis, an iterative

method is used to calculate these parameters. The calculations for I 0 (t ) , I PV (t ) , VOC (t ) , I mp (t ) and Vmp (t )
can be obtained from references [7, 8], where I mp (t ) and

V (t ) + I mp (t ) RS (t )
I 0 (t )
1
exp mp
+ R (t )
a
t
V
(
)
a (t )VT

T
P

J=
Vmp (t ) + I mp (t ) RS (t ) RS (t )
Vmp (t )
I 0 (t ) RS (t )
1+
exp
+ R (t )
a (t )VT
a (t )VT

P
I mp (t )

Vmp (t ) are the intermediate variables.

2.2.1 Differential evolution (DE)
DE algorithm is a stochastic parallel direct search
algorithm proposed by Storn and Price in 1995, which
can minimize nonlinear nondifferentiable continuous
space function [9]. The easy use, robustness, and
strong global optimization make DE a great success in
many areas [10]. Several important parameters in the
DE algorithm are as follows: D is the dimension of
solution space, G is the evolution of algebraic limit, g
refers to g-generation, NP is the size of population (in
each generation the size of population is same), F is
the scaling factor, and CR is the crossover probability.
Several DE algorithms are available. Here we use
DE/best/1/bin strategy [11, 12]. Three parameters are
needed to solve this problem, which are written as a
vector [a(t ), RS (t ), RP (t )] . Following the PV curve
characteristics of maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) [6], an objective function of DE can be obtained.
dP(t )
=0 and P(t ) = V (t ) I (t ) , we
With
dV (t ) [V (t ), I (t )]
mp

have

mp

dP(t )
dI (t )
= V (t )
+ I (t ) , which leads to
dV (t )
dV (t )

dI (t )
dV (t ) [V

mp ( t ), I mp ( t )]

I mp (t )
Vmp (t )

=0.

We define the objective function of PV cell as

I mp (t )
dI (t )
J=
+
, in which
dV (t ) [V (t ), I (t )] Vmp (t )
mp

mp

V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
dI (t )
= I 0 (t ) exp

a (t )VT
dV (t )

dI (t )
1 + RS (t )
RS (t ) dI (t )
1
dV (t )
a (t )V + a(t )V dV (t )
RP (t )

T
T
dI (t )
The rearrangement gives
=
dV (t )

(4)
Define vector x = [a(t ), RS (t ), RP (t )] and perform
iteration to minimize the objective function. The process is described as follows [13, 14]. Where, Vg +1,i and
U g +1,i are the intermediate variables.
(1) Initialization
xg ,i ( j ) = xmin ( j ) + rand(0,1)[ xmax ( j ) xmin ( j )] , g = 0 ,
xmin ( j ) xg ,i ( j ) xmax ( j ) ,
i = 1, 2," , NP ,

j = 1, 2," , D

(5)

where i represents the position of this vector in the

population, j is the jth element of the specified vector,
xmax and xmin are the upper and lower limits of the solution space, respectively.
(2) Mutation
v g +1,i = x g , r1 + F ( x g ,r 2 x g , r 3 ) ,

i r1 r 2 r 3

(6)
(3) Crossover
Perform the individual crossover operation on g generation ( { x g ,i } ) and intermediate variation ( {v g +1,i } ),
u g +1,i ( j ) =
vg +1,i ( j ), if rand(0,1) CR

otherwise
xg ,i ( j ),

or

j = jrand

(7)

where jrand is a random integer range from 1 to D.

(4) Boundary conditions
If ug +1,i is outside the boundary constraints, a
simple method is used,
ug +1,i = rand j (0,1) ( xmax xmin ) + xmin

(8)

until it meets the boundary conditions.

(5) Evaluation and selection
Select the test vector for the next generation of
population.
ug +1,i , if f ( ug +1,i ) f ( x g ,i )
x g +1,i =
otherwise
x g ,i

(9)

I 0 (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
1
exp
+ R (t )
a
(
t
)
V
a (t )VT

T
P
,

I 0 (t ) RS (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t ) RS (t )
1+
exp
+ R (t )
a (t )VT
a(t )VT

2.2.2 The relationship between PV cell and PV array

In the estimation of the parameters, the relevant
data of a single PV cell are needed, but the data given
by manufacturers are for PV modules. Those data are
open-circuit voltage Vmod (t ) , short-circuit current

so that the objective function of PV cell is

I mod (t ) , the current and voltage of maximum power

1157

Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

point I mp _ mod (t ) and Vmp _ mod (t ) . Thus the objective

Compare the expressions of J and J mod , we can

function of PV array should be used instead of that of

PV cell. Perform the same operations on the formula
of PV array as follows.
With Pmod (t ) = Vmod (t ) I mod (t ) , we have

see that when I mp _ mod (t ) = N P I mp (t ) , Vmp _ mod (t ) =

dPmod (t )
dI (t )
= Vmod (t ) mod
+ I mod (t ) , which leads to
dVmod (t )
dVmod (t )
dI mod (t )
dVmod (t ) [V

mp _ mod ( t ), I mp _ mod ( t )]

I mp _ mod (t )
Vmp _ mod (t )

=0.

Define the objective function

J mod =

dI mod (t )
dVmod (t ) [V

mp _ mod ( t ), I mp _ mod ( t )]

I mp _ mod (t )
Vmp _ mod (t )

in which
N

Vmod (t ) + S I mod (t ) RS (t )
dI mod (t )

NP
= N P I 0 (t ) exp

dVmod (t )
a (t )VT NS

NS

RS (t )

dI mod (t )
N
1

+ P
a (t ) NSVT a(t ) NSVT dVmod (t )
1+

NS
dI (t )
RS (t ) mod
NP
dVmod (t )
NS
RP (t )
NP

NSVmp (t ) , I mod (t ) = N P I (t ) , and V (t ) = Vmod (t ) NS

NS
J mod is obtained.
NP
Remark The above description shows that, in
the study of PV array (module), the PV cell model and
its objective function can be used by simply transforming the current and voltage of PV array to those
of PV cell by multiplying some coefficients. The following study is based on this conclusion.
are substituted into J, J =

2.2.3 The uniqueness of the solution

In the study, another problem is encountered:
whether the transcendental equation is solvable or not,
so the solvability of this equation is discussed. According
to the PV cell model, the function can be expressed as

V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
1
f = I PV (t ) I 0 (t ) exp
a (t )VT

V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
I (t )
RP (t )

I (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
1
f
exp
= 0

a(t )VT
a (t )VT
V (t )

RP (t )

I (t ) RS (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
f
exp
= 0

a (t )VT
a(t )VT
I (t )

i.e.,

dI mod (t )
=
dVmod (t )
N

Vmod (t ) + S I mod (t ) RS (t )
N P I 0 (t )
NP

exp
NP
+

a (t ) NSVT
NS RP (t )
a (t )VT NS

Vmod (t ) + S I mod (t ) RS (t ) RS (t )
I 0 (t )

1+
exp
+
NP

RP (t )
a (t )VT
a (t )VT NS

we have

J mod

RS (t )
1
RP (t )

dI
dV

I 0 (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t )
1
exp
+ R (t )
a
t
V
(
)
a(t )VT

T
P
=
<0
I 0 (t ) RS (t )
V (t ) + I (t ) RS (t ) RS (t )
exp
+ R (r ) + 1
a (t )VT
a(t )VT

P
(11)
Remark The relationship of I(t) and V(t) is
bijective, so this transcendental equation has solutions
and has only one solution.

Vmod (t ) + S I mod (t ) RS (t )
N P I 0 (t )
NP

+
exp
NP

a(t ) NSVT
NS RP (t )
I mp _ mod (t )
a(t )VT NS

=
N
Vmp _ mod (t )

Vmod (t ) + S I mod (t ) RS (t ) RS (t )
I 0 (t )

+
1+
exp
NP

RP (t )
a(t )VT
a(t )VT NS

(10)

(Vmp _ mod , I mp _ mod )

1158

3
3.1

Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

where A(t) is the azimuth of the sun and H(t) is the

elevation angle of the sun. We take March 9, 2012 as
an example and calculate the incident angle, as shown
in Table 2.

SIMULATION RESULTS
Incident angle of the sun

Based on the horizon coordinate system, we use

MATLAB to calculate the position of the sun. According to the installation of the PV array, the angle of
incidence of the sun can be calculated and converted
into the radiation intensity of solar panels at any time
in a day [15-17]. Several variables are defined. is the
tilt angle of any surface to the horizontal. is the azimuth angle between the projection of normal of any
tilted surface in the horizontal plane and the line of
directly south. We assume that facing the east is negative, while facing the west is positive. i(t) is the angle
of incidence of the sun, which is the angle between the
ray of the sun and the normal of the plane. The incidence is calculated by the following equation [18-20]
cos i (t ) = cos sin H (t ) + sin cos H (t ) cos[ A(t ) ]
(12)
Table 2

3.2

Simulation and analysis on the PV array output

The inputs of simulation are the temperature of

PV panels, the voltage in DC side, and the irradiation.
The output is the current of DC side. The measured
output current of the DC side is needed. By the comparison between the measured current and the calculated
output current, the accuracy of our model can be verified.
In the process, the five parameters in the model are
taken as the intermediate variables, but the measured
irradiance is not the actual value of PV array, which
needs to be calculated. The actual irradiance received
by PV array is calculated by G (t ) = GC cos i (t ) , where
GC is the measured value and G (t ) is the actual irradiance received by PV array [18-20]. Fig. 3 is the program

Angle of incidence of the sun, March 9, 2012

Time

cos[i(t)]

Time

cos[i(t)]

Time

cos[i(t)]

Time

cos[i(t)]

7:00:10

0.2340

10:00:01

0.8496

13:00:01

0.9668

15:59:59

0.5168

7:30:01

0.3583

10:30:01

0.9100

13:30:01

0.9278

16:29:59

0.4013

8:00:01

0.4765

11:00:01

0.9548

14:00:01

0.8729

16:59:59

0.2789

8:30:01

0.5866

11:30:01

0.9832

14:29:59

0.8030

17:29:59

0.1517

9:00:01

0.6865

12:00:01

0.9947

14:59:59

0.7194

18:00:03

0.0219

9:30:01

0.7747

12:30:01

0.9892

15:29:59

0.6235

(a)

(b)

Figure 3 Illustration of main program (a) and DE algorithm program (b)

Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

Figure 4

Simulation diagram (range from 7:00 to 18:00, every five minutes to get a point)

for the PV array model. The parameters in DE are set

as follows: D = 3 , NP = 30 , CR = 0.4 , F = 0.4 ,
G = 200 , X max = [2 1 3000], X min = [1 0.1 100], and
Fstop = 0.000001, where Fstop is the condition to stop
the iteration.
Using the data of March 9, 2012 to simulate and
validate our method. The simulation results are shown
in Fig. 4. The system uses 5 parallel installations under
the same working conditions. The voltage of each road
is the same. Due to the differences between PV cells,
measurement errors and other effects, even under the
same working conditions, the current of each output is
not exactly the same. Therefore, the calculated output
current is compared with the current of each road and
the average of the five outputs separately. Although
the calculated output and actual values have some differences, the trend is the same and the error is small.
Therefore, our method for modeling of photovoltaic is
effective and gives satisfactory results. For the error
between the calculated output and actual data, the
main sources may be primarily from the following
three aspects. (1) The instrument gets the average irradiance, which should be the highest value. (2) The
five-parameter model is the most common model used,
but it still has errors. (3) The solution of the transcendental equation will cause large errors.
4

1159

CONCLUSIONS

This article mainly focuses on the modeling of

photovoltaic array. An iterative method for the
time-varying parameters is proposed. The relationship

between PV cell and PV array is obtained and the

uniqueness of the solution is proved. A practical PV
grid-connected generation system demonstrates the
validity of the method by the comparison of calculated
values with the actual output of the system.
NOMENCLATURE
A(t)
a(t)
CR
D
F
G(t)
GC
g
H(t)
I(t)
ID(t)
Imod(t)
Imp(t)
Imp_mod(t)
Impsc
IPV(t)
ISC
i(t)
J
Jmod
NP
NS
P(t)
Pmod(t)
q
RP(t)

azimuth of the sun, ()

impact factor of the diode
crossover probability
dimension of solution space
scaling factor
radiation intensity, kWm2
measured radiation intensity, kWm2
g-th generation
elevation angle of the sun, ()
current, A
diode reverse saturation current, A
current of PV array, A
current at the maximum power point, A
current at MPPT of the PV module, A
current at MPPT under standard conditions
current generated by light
short-circuit current
angle of incidence of the sun, ()
objective function of PV cell
objective function of PV array
number of cells in parallel
number of cells in series
power of PV cell, W
power of PV array, W
electron charge
parallel resistance,

1160

Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 20, No. 6, December 2012

RS(t)
V(t)
VD(t)
Vmod(t)
Vmp(t)
Vmp_mod(t)
Vmpsc
VOC(t)
VOCS

series resistance,
voltage, V
voltage of diode, V
voltage of PV array, V
voltage at MPPT, V
voltage at MPPT of PV module, V
voltage at MPPT under standard conditions
opening voltage, V
opening voltage under standard conditions, V
slant azimuth, ()
plane inclination, ()

Subscripts
mod
mp
pv
sc

module
MPPT
photovoltaic
standard conditions

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