Abstract
This paper presents an experimental investigation on the influence of shading on mono-crystalline (mono-Si) solar cell parameters. The variations of equivalent circuit parameters with shading were determined and then used in modelling a mono-Si solar cell and a mono-Si photovoltaic (PV) module under partial shading. It was found that the simulation by considering the parameter variations with shading in the single cell model did not lead to a noticeable improvement in modelling accuracy. However, for the PV module, a significant improvement in modelling accuracy in the reverse bias region was achieved when considering all parameter variations in the model. A further investigation was performed to identify the key parameters that are responsible for the improvement. The results revealed that in addition to the photo-generated current, the shunt resistance also has a significant effect on the model accuracy. A modelling approach was thus proposed, which includes the variation of the shunt resistance with shading, in addition to the variation of the photo-generated current. This approach was experimentally validated using a mono-Si PV module. The results show that the proposed approach is more accurate, compared to the approach that considers only the variation of the photo-generated current, without the need to include an avalanche breakdown term.