System for the electrical characterization of solar cells based on one data acquisition board and C#

Renewable energy has grown extensively in the last decades. The photovoltaic panels have been playing a significant role in the technologies used to produce this type of energy. This tendency is expected to continue in the future, because the cost of the solar panels has been gradually reduced. Systems providing information of the electric performance of the solar cells can be helpful for technicians and researchers. In this paper an inexpensive system that measures the I-V curves of photovoltaic cells is presented. With the experimental data the parameters of the single diode model of the solar cell were estimated implementing the simulated annealing algorithm. Three different solar modules were tested at various irradiation levels. A good agreement between the experimental data and the fitted curve was obtained.