Solar Cell Parameters Extraction from a Current-Voltage Characteristic Using Genetic Algorithm

The determination of solar cell parameters is very important for the evaluation of the cell performance as well as to extract maximum possible output power from the cell. In this paper, we propose a computational based binary-coded genetic algorithm (GA) to extract the parameters (I0, Iph and n) for a single diode model of solar cell from its current-voltage (I-V) characteristic. The algorithm was implemented using LabVIEW as a programming tool and validated by applying it to the I-V curve synthesized from the literature using reported values. The values of parameters obtained by GA are in good agreement with those of the reported values for silicon and plastic solar cells. change to “After the validation of the program, it was used to extract parameters for an experimental I-V characteristic of 4 × 4 cm2 polycrystalline silicon solar cell measured under 900 W/m. The I-V characteristic obtained using GA shows excellent match with the experimental one.