PV Cell Characteristics &

Model
 PV Cells: A historical perspective
• 1839: Discovery of photovoltaic effect by French physicist,
Alexandre- Edmond Becquerel. At age 19, he built the world's first
photovoltaic cell in his father's laboratory.
• The photovoltaic effect was experimentally demonstrated first by
French physicist Edmond Becquerel. He experimented with blue,
ultraviolet and sunlight and recorded observations.
• 1877: Adams and Day published in The Royal Society ‘The Action of
light on Selenium’(Selenium photovoltaic effect).

Selenium Photovoltaic Cell

• 1883: A description of the first new form of solar cells made from
selenium wafer (first thin film selenium Solar Cell) in American
Journal of Science were made by Charles Fritts and operated at 1%
efficiency.
• 1894: Charles Fritts constructed what was probably the first true solar
cell. He coated a semiconductor material (Selenium) with an
extremely thin layer of Gold.
• 1932: Audobert and Stora discovered the photovoltaic effect in
Cadmium Sulfide(CdS).
• 1941: Ohl made the first patent on Silicon solar cell with an efficiency
of much less than 1%.
• 1954: A Cadmium Sulphide p-n junction was produced with an
efficiency of 6% by Chapin D M fuller C S and Pearson G L.
• 1985: The University of South Wales breaks the 20% efficiency
barrier for silicon solar cells under one sun conditions.
• 2013: The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy achieved a 44.7%
efficiency in solar cell technology.
 Photovoltaic Effect
• Sunlight is composed of photons, or particles of solar energy that
contain various amounts of energy corresponding to the different
wavelengths of the solar spectrum.
• The electrons present in the valence band absorb energy, and being
excited jump to the conduction band and become free.
• These highly excited electrons are then accelerated into a different
material by a built in potential.
• This generates an electromotive force, and thus some of the light
energy is converted into electric energy.
 Modification of p-n junction from sink to
source
• Consider a diode connected as a part of the external circuit as shown.

i-v chara of silicon diode

 PV cell characteristics

i-v chara of a solar cell (photovoltaic cell)

• Current ipv of the current source is the photocurrent.

• It depends on the incident radiation intensity.
• Under dark conditions (i.e., no sunlight), ip=0 and the source
characteristics will be same as the diode forward characteristics.
• As the solar radiation increases, the current ip (and hence i) increases.
• Now the characteristics will shift to the 4th quadrant by the amount ip.
• Any operating point on the 4th quadrant will, therefore, indicate the PV
cell generating power.
• For some portion of the curve, the current is constant while for some
portion the voltage is constant.
• Thus, a PV cell is a unique combination of a constant-current,
constant-voltage sources.
• The constant current line gives an idea of the slope of the constant current portion
and implies a high value shunt resistance in parallel with the current source.
• The constant voltage line indicates the slope of the constant voltage portion and
implies a series resistance in series with the terminal.
 Equivalent circuit of a solar cell

Equivalent circuit of a photovoltaic cell

• This model is popularly known as the single-diode equivalent model.

• If we take the series resistance to be zero and shunt resistance to be infinite,
we obtain the ideal equivalent circuit of a PV cell.
• The series resistance is indicative of the internal resistance to the flow of
current.
 Equivalent circuit of a solar cell
• Rs depends on the P-N junction depth, impurities, and contact
resistance.
• The shunt resistance indicates the leakage current.
• For a typical 1 sq. in. silicon cell, the series resistance varies from 0.05
– 0.10 ohm and shunt resistance is in the range of 200 – 300 ohm.
• The PV conversion efficiency is greatly affected by even small
variations of the series resistance, while being insensitive to variations
in shunt resistance.
• A small increase in the series resistance can reduce the PV output
significantly.
 Currents in the equivalent circuit
The photocurrent is given by,
------- (1)
At node A, the voltage is,

But,

Therefore,

Substituting in (1), we get

------- (2)
The diode current can be written as,
-------- (3)

Where
I0 is the reverse saturation current
η is the ideality factor (=2 for silicon)
VT is the volt equivalent of temperature

k is Boltzmann’s constant
T is temperature of the junction
• Substituting (3) in (2) and solving for the terminal current ‘i’, we get

This is called the terminal current model.

 PV Cell Parameters from I-V and P-V
Characteristics
• Consider the equivalent circuit of the PV cell and the corresponding I-
V characteristics as shown below.

Equivalent circuit of a PV Cell I-V Characteristics of a PV Cell

 PV Cell Parameters
• The terminal current is given by,

The three significant points on the I-V characteristics are marked in

the graph.
Point-1
Consider the case when the terminals a and k are short circuited.
Across these terminals, the voltage is zero due to the short circuit.
The y-axis intercept when the terminal voltage is zero (short-
circuited) is called the short circuit current (Isc).
 At this point, Vak = 0 and I = Isc. Therefore,

• Generally, Rse <<<< Rsh. Therefore, IscRse -> 0. In such case,

• Isc = ip
• Since the ip is proportional to the irradiance (incident solar
radiation), we can write
• Isc α Irradiance
This means that whenever irradiance changes, the short-circuit
current changes linearly.
Point-2
Now consider the case when there is no load connected to the PV cell.
This represents the open circuit condition. In this case, current is zero.
When the current is zero, the terminal voltage is called the open-
circuit voltage (Voc).
Here, Vak = Voc, and i = 0. This means,
Numerically, Rsh >>> Voc. Thus we can approximate the above
equation as,
Taking natural logarithm on both sides, we get

Thus, Voc is related to ip (and hence the irradiance), but in a

logarithmic manner.

Whenever there is any increase in irradiance, the open-circuit

voltage increases logarithmically.
Parameter Change in irradiance
Open-Circuit Voltage Logarithmic change (small value)
Short-Circuit Current Linear change (proportionally large)
Effect Of Change In Irradiance on I-V
Chara
Third Point
The third point of significance relates to the
maximum power that can be transferred from the PV
cell.
At the origin, V = 0 and I = 0, implying P = 0.
At Voc point, P = 0 as the current is zero.
At Isc point, P = 0 as the voltage is zero.

Hence there will be a hill-shaped power curve in

between these two points. This curve is called the P-
V Curve of solar cell.
 • The point on the power-voltage curve where
maximum power can be extracted is called the
maximum power point (Pm). The projection of
this point on the V-I curve gives the third significant
point as the operating point corresponding to
maximum power generation.
• The voltage at maximum power point is denoted by
Vm and the current at maximum power point by Im.
• It is necessary to operate the solar cell at the
V-I and P-V Curves of PV Cell operating point corresponding to the maximum
power point in order to supply maximum possible
power to the load and use the solar cell to its fullest.
Effect Of Change In Irradiance on P-V Chara
 Solar Cell Parameters – A Datasheet
• Solar cell efficiency is,

Q) Consider the panel with 6*10 pieces of polycrystalline solar cell

series, with each cell having dimensions of 156mm*156mm. Standard
insolation = 1kW/m2. Then,
Pin = (1kW/m2) * (area of the panel)
= (1 kW/m2) * (60 * 156mm * 156mm)
= (1kW/m2) * (1.46 m2)
Pin = 1.46kW
For this panel, efficiency is 16.5% (from datasheet)
Thus,
• Po = Pm = efficiency of cell * Pin
= (16.5/100) * (1.46*1000)
Po = 240W
• If G is the irradiance (in kW/m2) and Ac is the area of cell (in
m2), then
• Thus, efficiency of cell is inversely
proportional to its area.
• Effective area available in a module
decreases due to spacing between
cells. Therefore always,
ηcell > ηmodule
• The datasheet ratings are usually
given for the cell itself and not the
module.
 Effect Of Temperature on Isc
• Temperature change affects three parameters namely, the short-circuit
current (Isc), the open-circuit voltage (Voc) and the maximum power point
(Pm).
Effect of temperature on Isc
Earlier, it was shown that the short-circuit current is directly proportional
to the photocurrent (ip). The photocurrent is directly proportional to the
irradiance or insolation (power/m2 of the incident solar radiations).
With increase in temperature, the photocurrent will increase. This is
because the forbidden band gap energy reduces, enabling more
electrons to jump from the valance band to the conduction band,
giving more free electrons.
Therefore, the short circuit current increases as temperature
increases. That is, Isc has a positive temperature coefficient.
The increase is very small (around 0.1% per Kelvin rise in
temperature). This is represented in the datasheet by the parameter
temperature coefficient of ISC.
 Effect Of Temperature on Voc
• Effect of temperature on Voc
• The equation of Voc is given by,

• since I0 <<< ip, we can say I0+ip = ip. Therefore,

• In the above equation, VT = T/11600 is a function of

temperature, and I0 is an exponential function of temperature.
Considering these two effects, Voc will be inversely proportional
to temperature. The dependence of I0 on temperature can be
expressed as,
• Using a constant of proportionality, we can write,

• Taking natural logarithm on both sides, we get

 Differentiating with respect to T and simplifying, we get
---------- (1)
We know that,

Differentiating with respect to T, we get

Simplifying, we get

Or,

This shows that the rate of change of Voc with respect to temperature is
inversely proportional to temperature. In other words, an increase in
temperature will reduce the open-circuit voltage. That is, Voc has a negative
temperature coefficient.
 Effect Of Temperature on Pm
• Effect of temperature on Pm
• Power is a product of voltage and current. Since Voc has a negative
temperature coefficient of temperature and Isc has a positive
temperature coefficient of temperature, and considering that the
temperature coefficient of Isc is very small, the power will also have a
negative temperature coefficient of temperature.
• This means that Pm would decrease with an increase in
temperature.
Effect Of Change In Temperature

Parameter Effect of temperature

Open-Circuit Negative temperature

Voltage coefficient

Short-Circuit Positive temperature coefficient

Current

Maximum Negative temperature

Power Point coefficient
 Temperature Change Effect
• The values in the datasheet have been given for STC: Irradiance
1000W/m2, Module Temperature 25℃.
• Let us calculate the values for 40 ℃ temperature.

The percentage temperature coefficient of Isc is given by,

= 0.045%/K
Therefore, change in Isc is,
A
• Therefore, the temperature at 40 degree Celsius is,
•
• Similarly we can calculate ΔV and ΔP as,

• And calculate the open-circuit voltage and power to be,

•
•
Parameter Value at 25 Value at 40

Voc 36.72 V 34.85 V

Isc 8.99 A 8.9968 A

Pm 240 Wp 223 Wp
Concept of Fill Factor

The Fill Factor (FF) is a figure of merit

of a PV cell. In other words, the FF tells
how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ the PV cell is.
Consider the intersecting perpendiculars
drawn at Voc and Isc that represents the
maximum possible voltage and current
that can theoretically be obtained by the
cell.
• It is impossible to obtain this point practically. This point would be the
operating point of an ideal cell, but not of a practical cell.
• The point (Vm, Im) is the practically achievable operating point due to
the effects of Rsh and Rse.
• The fill factor represents how close the rectangle of (Vm, Im) bound
point goes to the rectangle bound by (Voc, Isc) point.
• The area as encompassed by the practically achievable maximum
power point with respect to the idealized maximum power area is
called the fill factor (FF).
• Mathematically, it is expressed as,

For the BYD 240 Wp panel,

Vm = 30.18V, Im = 7.96A
Voc = 36.72V. Isc = 8.99A
The fill factor is,
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