Variability of Performance Indices of Photovoltaic Solar Panels in Operating Conditions in the Littoral Zone of Cameroon

Abstract

Photovoltaic cells are generally manufactured under standard test conditions. The operating conditions, very often induce performance losses different from those initially given by the manufacturer. This article presents an experimental acquisition and analysis system that integrates the synthetic efficiency ratio (SER) as a hybrid analysis tool to evaluate the performance of a monocrystalline photovoltaic solar panel, in this case the LW-MS90 panel in the city of Douala. The meteorological data obtained experimentally was used to evaluate these performances according to the manufacturer’s model in MATLAB/Simulink. By comparison with the experimental performances, the results quantify through a certain number of indices, a minimal power drop according to the acquired irradiance estimated at 3.45%. The interest of this approach is to contribute to the prediction of the operating performance of PV panels in the installation phase in non-standard areas.