Measurement of the Current-Voltage Curve of Photovoltaic Cells Based on a DAQ and Python

Israel Reyes-Ramírez, Jorge Fonseca-Campos and Juan Luis Mata-Machuca

 

2018/04/20

Abstract

The renewable energy has grown extensively in the last decades. The photovoltaic panels have been playing a significant role in the technologies used to produce this kind of energy. This tendency is expected to continue in the future, because the cost of the solar panels has been gradually reduced. Systems providing information of the performance of the solar cells can be helpful for technicians and researchers. In this paper a system to measure the I-V curves of photovoltaic cells is presented. This is composed by a data acquisition board (DAQ) and a personal computer (PC). The program to control the DAQ is written in Python. With this system a polycrystalline silicon solar cell was tested under low irradiance conditions (less than 100 W/m2) with an artificial light source. The repeatability of the I-V curves obtained has less than 5 % error.

Published in: Renewable Energy & Power Quality Journal (RE&PQJ, Nº. 16)
Pages: 93-98 Date of Publication: 2018/04/20
ISSN: 2172-038X Date of Current Version:2018/03/23
REF: 223-18 Issue Date: April 2018
DOI:10.24084/repqj16.223 Publisher: EA4EPQ

Authors and affiliations

Israel Reyes-Ramírez, Jorge Fonseca-Campos and Juan Luis Mata-Machuca
Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria en Ingeniería y Tecnologías Avanzadas. Instituto Politécnico Nacional. México.

Key words

Photovoltaic Panels, Python, DAQ, I-V Curves.

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