EXPERIMENT NO.

2
AIM: Design Equivalent circuit of PV Cell
SOFTWARE USED: MATLAB R2014A
THEORY:
The theory of solar cells explains the process by which light energy in photons is converted
into electric current when the photons strike a suitable semiconductor device.
Photons in sunlight hit the solar panel and are absorbed by semi-conducting materials.
Electrons (negatively charged) are knocked loose from their atoms as they are excited. Due to

their special structure and the materials in solar cells, the electrons are only allowed to move
in a single direction. The electronic structure of the materials is very important for the process
to work, and often silicon incorporating small amounts of boronor phosphorus is used in
different layers.An array of solar cells converts solar energy into a usable amount of direct
current (DC) electricity. The following schematic diagram explains the process

The Equivalent Circuit

If you want to carefully analyze the behavior of a circuit that includes a solar (aka photovoltaic,
or PV) cell, you need to use an “equivalent circuit”—i.e., you need to replace the cell with a
group of basic components that can produce similar electrical behavior. This is the equivalent
circuit for a solar cell:

The idea here is that the solar cell generates an internal current corresponding to the light
intensity. Not all of this current is available to the load, though, because some flows through
the parallel diode (recall that photovoltaic conversion is implemented using a pn junction) and
some flows through the parallel resistance (RP).
When no load resistance is present, the voltage available at the terminals of the solar cell is
determined by the interaction of the current source with the parallel diode and the parallel
resistance. This is called the “open-circuit voltage.” If the cell is supplying load current, the
voltage at the terminals will be lower than the open-circuit voltage, because some of the voltage
is dropped across the series resistance (RS).
Solar cell is similar to a battery, except that the “battery” voltage varies according to light
intensity. However, the equivalent circuit makes a PV cell look like a current source rather than
a voltage source. This could be rather awkward since we’re all accustomed to powering circuits
using voltage sources, not current sources.
A solar cell is not really a voltage source or a current source as we usually think of them, but
it can power a circuit in the typical voltage-source style. The additional components in the
equivalent circuit indicate that the internal current source is not in direct interaction with the
load components. Furthermore, the cell will always generate a voltage (even when nothing is
connected to the terminals) because the internally generated current flows through the internal
diode and RP.
Cells can be connected in series or parallel as shown in figure below. When connected in series
the voltage becomes additive while when connected in parallel current becomes additive.

STIMULATION OUTPUT:
OBSERVATION TABLE:
SR CONNECTION NUMBER OF VOLTAGE CURRENT
NO. TYPE CELLS USED SENSOR
SENSOR READING
READING
1. Parallel 1 0.07333V 0.007333A
2 0.0733V 0.01467A
3 0.0733V 0.0221A
4 0.0733V 0.02933A
5 0.0733V 0.0366A
2. Series 2 0.03678V 0.007339A
3 0.02447V 0.007339A
4 0.01835V 0.00734A
5 0.01468V 0.00734A
CONCLUSION:
Thus we have designed PV cell in Parallel connection and Series connection by studying the
equivalent circuit and implementing it in MATLAB.