Solar cell modeling in normal and degraded operations for simulation and monitoring

The transition to clean energies is a major environmental and economic issue. The transformation of solar irradiance into electrical energy appears to be one of the most promising solutions thanks to its simplicity of implementation and its worldwide availability. However, the lifespan of solar cells and their efficiency remain open research issues. Improving the performance of solar cells requires in-depth knowledge of this equipment on different levels in normal, degraded and faulty operations. This paper presents a multi-physical modeling of solar cells integrating different phenomena on three levels of abstraction: the material level, the cell level and the panel level. The proposed model highlights the key parameters of the system and their influence on its performance, thus, it is possible to simulate normal operations and degraded operations by introducing variations of the system characteristics. On the material level, the simulation results show that a variation of 1mv in the open circuit voltage causes a variation of 4.68% in the cell power. On the cell level, and after 2000 h of use of the photovoltaic cell in presence of wear phenomenon, the observed degradation in the cell performance represents a voltage decrease of 38.98%and a 40%current decrease. These results are in agreement with the experimental measurements available in the literature, corroborating the effectiveness of the proposed model.