Real-Time Performance Assessment of Operating Photovoltaic (PV) Systems

A technology called solar energy is a very promising technique, and is considered as the cleanest and the most abundant renewable resource that is naturally available every day. In this paper, a MATLAB environment has been developed to calculate real-time power incidence on a PV system. It takes into account the time, location, PV tilt, and azimuth angles, and weather conditions to estimate incident power. In this paper, one case study is considered at New York State location. It has been applied to a newly installed 8 kW residential system located in Inwood. The solar panels are made up of silicon HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin Layer) cells by Panasonic and solar cell rated at 19%. The result shows that the system is performing at its rated efficiency. The calculations involve the determination of direct, diffused and reflected radiation on the panels taking into account the time of the day, location, PV area, and orientations and weather conditions. The cloudiness index may be estimated based on the weather data and included in the calculations. After performing the irradiance calculations, the output power is estimated based on the rated efficiency at its temperature and compared with the generated output power. The real-time assessment of a PV system performance, during the operational time monitors the health of the PV system. The data obtained by this calculator may accompany production data provided to the consumer by the utility company.