Low-Cost Instrument for Tracing Current-Voltage Characteristics of Photovoltaic Modules

Abstract

This paper presents a simple, robust and low-cost instrument for tracing current-and power-voltage characteristics of photovoltaic modules or low voltage strings using either an oscilloscope or a LabVIEW application developed for this purpose. It consists of a flexible electronic circuit, developed from a previous work, based on a fast varying load, built with a power MOSFET, which is controlled by means of a suitable gate-source voltage control signal in order to improve the tracing of current-and powervoltage characteristics on an oscilloscope. The new developments of this work include a low-cost DAQ system and an application developed in LabVIEW, which enhances the functionalities and flexibility of the current-voltage tracer. The robustness was strongly improved in view of field tests for fault diagnosis analysis. All details of the electronic circuit are shown in this paper and experimental results obtained with the new instrument are presented.

Photovoltaic Device Performance Evaluation Using an Open-Hardware System and Standard Calibrated Laboratory Instruments

“…Leite et al [25] propose a low-cost electronic load I-V curve tracer for modules and strings based on a MOSFET transistor electronic load to bias the device and control it using an application programmed in LabVIEW [26]. Another example of the use of an electronic load combined with low-cost acquisition hardware is pointed out in the work carried out by Hemza et al [27], where the acquisition of the current-voltage pairs is performed by an Arduino board governed by a personal computer also running a LabVIEW application.…”

Low-cost I-V tracer for photovoltaic modules and strings

“…However, the ones available on the market are often expensive. Anyway, by using quite simple and much cheaper circuits, it is also possible to build an electronic DC load taking advantage of a suitable operation of a power MOSFET, as described in [5] and [6]. In fact, a power MOSFET operating in the active region can be used as an electronic load to test PV modules [4] - [8].…”

Tracing current-voltage curve of solar panel Based on LabVIEW Arduino Interfacing

“…In photovoltaic field, the solar cell allows to obtaining the electricity directly by converting sunlight into electricity available and adaptable to our needs. However, the lifetime of solar panel degrades with the progress of year due to the environment conditions, which effects on its fundamental parameters [2], to estimate and evaluate the performance of photovoltaic modules or arrays such as fill factor (FF), open-circuit voltage ( ), short circuit current ( ) and maximum power ( ), the characteristic current-voltage (I-V) is necessary [3]. In standard test condition (STC:…”