A mathematical model to forecast solar PV performance

ABSTRACT This work focuses on developing a mathematical model to forecast the performance of solar PV. In the present scenario, solar photovoltaic performance has been envisaged by considering the impact of limited variables subject to certain assumptions and conditions and the current work drives the attention toward the effect of temperature, relative humidity, wind velocity, and panel aging effects. There hasn’t been any breakthrough in the previous research so far while collectively analyzing the efficiency loss in solar photovoltaic, due to the aforementioned parameters. Hence, this work aims to develop a mathematical model in view of the above-mentioned parameters. This work has been experimented using MATLAB software and online simulation tools are used to validate the results. The results are favorable with the deviation of efficiency between the online simulation tool and the proposed mathematical model being 2–4%. Furthermore, a real-time case study has been carried out at a solar power plant installed at Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, Tamilnadu, to validate the proposed mathematical model. It is observed that the absolute difference in power between the simulation and the actual meter reading is between 30 and 60 Watts with an RMSE between 5 and 16% and MPE of 675 Watts.