Realtime parameter monitoring and maximum power point estimation of solar photovoltaic array

This paper presents a versatile monitoring system for solar photovoltaic (PV) system under real-time environment. The parameters of solar PV system such as panel voltage, panel current, irradiance level and module temperature are acquired through various compact Data Acquisition (DAQ) modules. These parameters are utilized to plot the dynamic characteristics of the PV module such as I-V and P-V curves, which are automatically refreshed with the variation in the irradiance level. National Instrument's compact RIO consisting of cRIO chassis and compact DAQ modules powered by LabVIEW® software are used for creating this real-time environment. These measured parameters can be published in the web using the built-in web server of LabVIEW software package. Thus this system can be deployed for remote observation and control of the solar array. The maximum power point (MPP) of the solar PV module is also estimated through simulation and experiment.