As the most popular renewable energy, solar energy could be converted into electricity by photovoltaic (PV) systems directly. To maximize the effectiveness of the conversion, it is critical to find the precise and accurate parameters of the PV model. In this paper, we propose a level-based learning swarm optimizer with stochastic fractal search (LLSOF) to tackle the parameter estimation of several kinds of solar PV models. The population is separated into multiple levels according to their fitness at first. The individuals at the lower levels evolve through learning from the individuals at the higher levels. Benefiting from the interactive learning among levels, the population could approach the multiple optimal regions rapidly. To enhance the local search ability, stochastic fractal search is introduced to locate the optima accurately. Combination of both, the proposed LLSOF could achieve a good balance on both exploration and exploitation. To evaluate the performance of LLSOF, it is used to obtain the parameters of three PV models and compared with nine well-established algorithms. Comparative results validate the excellent performance of LLSOF. Moreover, the application manufactory’s data sheets report the superior efficiency and effectiveness of LLSOF for the parameter estimation of PV systems.

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