Multi-dimension Diode Photovoltaic Model for

Different PV Cell Technologies

Jing Jun Soon, Kay-Soon Low and Shu Ting Goh

Satellite Research Centre (SaRC)
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore 639798
jjsoon1@e.ntu.edu.sg, shuting@ntu.edu.sg, k.s.low@ieee.org

Abstract—Different types of photovoltaic (PV) cell technologies are commercially used to assemble a PV module. These cell
technologies can be categorized as multi-crystalline, mono-crystalline and thin film. Nonetheless, due to the different characteristics
between PV cell technologies, one PV model is unable to model every type of PV modules. The single and double diode PV models have
been widely used for modeling the output characteristic of a PV module. This paper introduces a generalize multi-dimension diode PV
model which can be used to select the most suitable PV model for each type of PV module. Three different PV modules are selected for
simulation study. Results confirm that the single diode PV model is suitable to model the output characteristic of the multi-crystalline
and mono-crystalline PV modules. For the thin film PV module, at least nine diodes are required to achieve a lower modeling error.

Keywords— Double diode photovoltaic model; Maximum power point (MPP); multi-dimension diode photovoltaic model; single diode
photovoltaic (PV) model.

I. INTRODUCTION
A photovoltaic (PV) module consists of multiple PV cells connected in series and parallel to achieve high voltage and current
output. The common PV cell technologies commercially available can be categorized into multi-crystalline, mono-crystalline, thin
film, and multi-junction PV cells. Each PV cell technology has different manufacturing process and characteristics. To evaluate
and study a given PV system performance, PV models have been used to replicate the output characteristics of the PV cells under
different environmental conditions.
The PV model generally consists of a current source, diodes and resistors as shown in Fig. 1. The most common PV models are
the single and double diode models shown in Fig. 1a and b [1-5]. For the single diode model used in [1-3], it consists of five
unknown parameters, namely the photovoltaic current, diode saturation current, ideality factor, series and parallel resistance. This
model provides a fairly accurate PV model estimation, and it has the advantage of lower computation cost. On the other hand, the
two diode PV model has an additional diode that is used to compensate the recombination losses in the depletion region [4]. This
increases the unknown parameter to be seven. The additional unknown parameters are the diode saturation current and ideality
factor. The numbers of unknown parameters to be identified can be reduced by removing the series or/and parallel resistance of
the single and double diode models that compromises the accuracy [6-8]. In [9], a three diode PV model is introduced to address
the issue of leakage current due to the periphery connected to the PV cell during measurement.
 I
ID2 IRp Rs
Ipv VD Rp V

(a)
I
ID1 ID2 IRp Rs
Ipv VD Rp V

(b)
Fig. 1 Electrical PV model (a) single diode PV model and (b) double diode PV model.

In past PV model studies, a PV model is usually selected to evaluate PV modules of different cell technologies by finding the
optimal unknown parameters. Hence, the accuracy of the I-V curves depends on the algorithm which is used to estimate the
unknown parameters. Nonetheless, one PV model alone will not always be able to model every type of PV cell material even with
the most robust algorithm.
In this paper, a generalized multi-dimension diode PV model is introduced to select the most suitable PV model for each PV
cell technology. The proposed model can be used to represent as either a single, double or multi-dimension diode PV model by
varying the number of diodes. The additional diodes introduced more unknown parameters into PV model allowing the model to
adjust itself to better fit the I-V curves of different PV cell technologies.
The accuracy of the maximum power point generated from the multi-dimension diode model will be used as a figure of merit to
determine the best model for each PV cell technologies. The KD210GH-2PU multi-crystalline, SP70 mono-crystalline and ST40
Copper Indium Diselenide (CID) based thin film PV modules are used in this studied and the algorithm in [3] will be used to
identified the unknown parameters. The results show that the single diode model is able to model the KD210GH-2PU and SP70
PV modules. However, the modeling error increases at high temperature for ST40 PV module. By having at least 9 diodes in the
multi-dimension PV model, it is capable of modeling the output characteristic of the ST40 PV module.
This paper is organized as follows: Section II provides an overview of the generalized multi-dimension diode PV mathematical
model. Section III presents the algorithm used to identified the unknown parameters of the PV model and Section IV presents the
results of the proposed PV model. Finally, Section V summarizes the work.

II. MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF PV MODULE

A. Generalized Multi-dimension Diode PV Model

Fig. 2 shows a generalized multi-dimension diode electrical model of a PV module. It consists of the photocurrent source (Ipv),
n by m dimension diodes in series and parallel (Dnm), series resistance (Rs) and parallel resistance (Rp). Rs is the sum of structure
resistance [1] and Rp represents the leakage current. By adding more diodes, the multi-dimension diode PV model has more
degree of freedom to adjust itself to model the output characteristics of different PV cells.
 Fig. 2 Generalized multi-dimension Diode PV Model

From Fig. 2, the output current I of the generalized multi-dimension diode PV model is given as:
m

n   m
VD,ij  
V D ,ij

I  I pv  
I o,i exp 
   a NV  
  1  j 1
Rp
(1)
i 1   j 1 ij s t  

where Io is the diode saturation current, a is the diode ideality factor, VD is the diode voltage, Vt  kT q represents the thermal
voltage, and Ns is the number of cells connected in series per string. The parameter k is the Boltzmann constant (1.3806503x10-23
J/K), q is the electron charge (1.60217646x10-19 C) and T is the temperature of the photovoltaic module in Kelvin. The diode voltage
VD in (1) can be express in terms of the output voltage V as:
m

V
j 1
D ,ij  V  IRs (2)

By substituting (2) into (1), the expression is reduced to be

n   m
V  IRs   V  IRs
I  I pv   I o,i exp 
     1 
a N V m  Rp
(3)
i 1   j 1 ij s t  

The n dimension diode saturation current with respect to temperature is express as:

I sc T 
I o ,i  T   , where i  1, 2,3,...n (4)
exp
  Voc T 
a0 i N sVt  1
where Isc and Voc is the short circuit current and open circuit voltage respectively. The ideality factor in (4) is taken to be the same as
the ideality factor in (1) for the single and double diode model (when m = 1). Due to the multi-dimension diode proposed in this
paper, the ideality factor in (4) is taken to be another unknown parameter (define as a0) when m > 1 (for m = 1, a0i = ai1 where i = 1,
2, 3…. n).
Under short circuit conditions at a given temperature T, I=Isc(T) and V=0, (3) becomes:
 Rp
I sc T  
Rs  R p
 (5)

n   m
I sc T  Rs  
  I pv 

 I o,i exp 
     1 
a N V T  m   
i 1   j 1 ij s t  

When the PV module is open circuit, I=0, V=Voc(T) and the open circuit voltage can be determined from (3) as:

Voc T   R p 
 n   m
Voc T   (6)
   1 
 I pv 

 I o,i exp 
  
j 1 ij s t   
a N V T m  

 i 1   

By substituting I=Imp, V=Vmp into (3) and multiplying it with Vmp, the maximum power for a given temperature can be obtained as
in (7).

R pVmp T   Vmp T 
Pmp T    I pv 
Rs  R p  Rp
(7)
n   m
Vmp T   I mp T  Rs   
  I o,i exp 
   a N V  T  m
  1 
 
i 1   j 1 ij s t  

Equations (5)-(7) provide three data points that the optimizer can be used to determine the best set of aij, a0i, Rs and Rp.
The light intensity G and operating temperature T affect Ipv in (1)-(4) proportionally [1, 10-12]:
G
I pv  G, T  
Gn

I pv,n  K Isc T  (8)

where Ipv,n and Gn are the photovoltaic current and light intensity (W/m2) at STC respectively. KIsc is the short circuit current
temperature coefficient (mA/°C) and ΔT = T-Tn is the temperature difference between the present condition and STC.

B. Temperature effects on PV
The short circuit current Isc,e(T), open circuit voltage Voc,e(T), maximum power current Imp,e(T), maximum power voltage
Vmp,e(T) and maximum power Pmp,e(T) are temperature dependent. At a given operating temperature T, these parameters can be
estimated as

 I sc,e T    I sc ,n   K Isc 
     
 Voc,e T    Voc,n   KVoc 
 I mp,e T     I mp, n    K Imp  T (9)
     
Vmp,e T   Vmp, n   KVmp 
 P T    P   K 
 mp,e   mp, n   Pmp 
where Isc,n , Voc,n , Imp,n, Vmp,n and Pmp,n are the short circuit current, open circuit voltage and maximum power current voltage and
power at nominal condition respectively. The notation K represents the temperature coefficient available in the manufacturer’s
datasheet and the subscript defines the temperature coefficient for each parameters. When the temperature coefficient for the
maximum power current and voltage are not available, they can be approximate using the short circuit current and open circuit
voltage coefficient [13].
 III. PARTICLE SWARM OPTIMIZIATION
The particle swarm optimization (PSO) method in [3] is used in this paper to identify the unknown parameters of the multi-
dimension diode PV model. The objective is to find the most optimized set of parameters such that the I-V and P-V characteristics
match well with the experimental data at a given temperature T. The objective function can be written using (5) to (9) as

min fobj  f Isc  fVoc  f Pmp  fbarrier (10)

anm , RS , RP ,T

where
I sc T 
f Isc  anm, RS , RP , T   1 (11)
I sc,e T 
Voc T 
fVoc  anm, RS , RP , T   1 (12)
Voc,e T 
Pmp T 
f Pmp  anm, RS , RP , T   1 (13)
Pmp,e T 
 n m  1 1 
fbarrier   
 i 1
  j 1
aij 


 aij ,max  a p a p  aij ,min



 1 1 
  Rs    (14)
 RS ,max  RS , p RS , p  RS ,min 
 
 1 1 
 Rp   
 RP ,max  RP , p RP , p  RP ,min 
 

The term anm in (11) to (13) represents the ideality factors in the multi-dimension diode PV model as shown in Fig. 2. From (10),
it is observed that by adding more diodes into the PV model, the number of unknown parameters and computation cost increases.
Therefore, it is necessary to determine a suitable PV model for different cell technologies to compromise between the accuracy
and computational cost.
The inverse barrier function (14) is added to ensure that the unknown parameters will always be positive and fall within the
given parameter range. The barrier function uses µ as the overall weighting factor and the term  x   xmax  xmin  4 where x =
aij, RS or RP are the weighting factors added to ensure that the barrier function terms has equal weight despites the difference in
the constraint values. The detail algorithm is found in [3].

IV. RESULTS
The proposed multi-diode PV model is optimized to search for the most accurate PV model (number of diodes required) for the
following three PV modules; Kyocera KD210GH-2PU (Multi-crytalline) [14], Shell SP70 [15] (Mono-crystalline) and Shell ST40
[16] (Copper Indium Diselenide (CID) based thin film). The following parameters are used in this study:

 population size N: 70;

 maximum generation to be evaluated: 1000;
 members of particle: aij where i = 1, 2..n, j = 1,2…m, RS and RP.
 barrier parameter μ = 0.2;
 number of I-V curves generated to select best parameters: 5000.

and the constraint parameters for the inverse barrier used for the three PV modules are given in Table I.
 Table I
SIMULATION CONSTRAINTS FOR INVERSE BARRIER
Parameter Kyocera KD210GH-2PU Shell SP70 Shell ST40
aij,min 0.5 0.5 0.5
aij,max 2.0 2.0 2.0
RS,min 0.001 0.001 0.001
RS,max 1.0 1.0 2.0
RP,min 50 50 50
RP,max 200 200 300

As the single diode model has been widely used to model the output characteristic of the PV module due to its simplicity and
accuracy [1, 3, 5], it will be first used to model the output characteristic of the three PV modules. Then, the proposed multi-
dimension PV model will be introduced next to study the accuracy performance of the proposed generalized multi-diode PV
model. Finally, the convergence rate of the multi-dimension diode PV model for different n and m are presented.
A. Single diode PV model (n=1, m=1)
First, the KD210GH-2PU multi-crystalline PV module is studied. The optimized ideality factor, series and parallel resistances
are used to plot out the I-V characteristics at different irradiation and temperature presented in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. The circle
markers show the manufacturer’s experimental data and the modeling result is represented by the solid line. From the results, it is
observed that the output characteristic of the single diode PV model and the manufacturer’s experimental data are close to each
other despite the environmental change.

Fig. 3 I-V curves of proposed model (solid line) and manufacturer’s experimental data (circuit marker) of KD210GH-2PU (Multi-crystalline) PV module under
different irradiation, T = 25 oC.

Fig. 4 I-V curves of proposed model (solid line) and manufacturer’s experimental data(circle marker) of KD210GH-2PU (Multi-crystalline) PV module at
different temperature, G = 1000 W/m2.
 Next, the maximum power point error of the KD210GH-2PU multi-crystalline, SP70 mono-crystalline and ST40 CID thin film
PV module are investigated. Fig. 5 presents the absolute Pmp and Vmp error for the three PV modules. The results are plotted using
an average of 10 sets for every 1 oC interval from -25 to 75 oC. From Fig. 5, the absolute normalize Pmp and Vmp errors for
KD210GH-2PU and SP70 are less than 0.1 % and 0.7 % respectively. The results confirm that the single diode PV model can
accurately model the output characteristic of the KD210GH-2PU multi-crystalline and SP70 mono-crystalline module. However,
for the case of ST40 CID thin film PV module, both the Pmp and Vmp error increases when the temperature is higher than 60 oC.
This addressed the possibility of the single diode PV model is not suitable for the thin film PV modules. In the next section, the
multi-dimension PV model is used to select a suitable PV model for the ST40 PV module.

Fig. 5 Absolute normalize (a) maximum power and (b) maximum power voltage error for KD210GH-2PU (multi-crystalline), SP70 (mono-crystalline) and ST40
(CID thin film) at different temperature, G = 1000 W/m2, A.M = 1.5.

B. Mutli-dimension PV model
The performance of the proposed generalized multi-dimension PV model is studied by measuring the Pmp and Vmp errors for n
and m = 1, 2 and 3. The absolute model error is defined as the sum of the Pmp and Vmp error. Thus, the absolute mean model error
shown in Fig. 6 is the average of the absolute model error from T = -25 to 75 oC, with increment of 5 oC, with total of 10 monte
carlo run. Fig. 6 shows that the ST40 PV module has a low model error when either only m is high or both m and n are high, e.g. n
= 1 and m = 2; n = 1; n = 2 and m = 3; n = 3 and m = 3. In other words, the series diode configuration has a higher impact on the
modeling accuracy for ST40 PV module. Therefore, based on the contour plot in Fig. 6, the case of n = 3, m = 3, is chosen as the
most suitable ST40 PV in the study. A comparison of the absolute mean model error for ST40 when n = 1, m = 1 and n = 3, m = 3
is shown in Fig. 7.
 Fig. 6 Absolute mean model error for ST40 from T = -25 to 75 oC for different values of n and m.

Fig. 7 shows both n = 1, m = 1 and n = 3, m = 3 cases have a similar absolute model error. However, for n = 3, m = 3 case, the
modeling error is lower at high temperature when compare to the case of n = 1 and m = 1. The improvement in modeling error at
T = 75 oC is approximately 35%. In summary, the single diode PV model is able to achieve a low model error for the ST40 but the
error increase along with temperature. By using the multi-dimension PV model, it is observed that the modeling error remains low
with the increment in temperature for n = m = 3. Hence, it is suitable to use n = 3, m = 3 diode model to replicate the output
characteristic of the ST40 PV module.

Fig. 7 Absolute modeling comparison for ST40 PV module, n = 1, m = 3 and n = 3, m = 3, n = 4, m = 4, T = -25 to 75 oC.

C. Convergence rate of multi-dimension PV model

The convergence rate of the multi-dimension PV model is studied in this section. Fig. 8 presents the best fitness value versus
generation for T = -25 to 75 oC. The results are obtained by repeating the algorithm with a new set of random population for 50
times. Results show when n = 1, m = 1 (single diode PV model), the initial best fitness value is relatively small. When n is
increase to 2 (double diode PV model) as in Fig. 8b, the initial best fitness value increases to about 1 to 3. This is due to the fact
that additional diodes in the PV model introduced more unknown parameters into (10) increasing the best fit value at the
beginning. Furthermore, Fig. 8c and d confirm that introducing more diodes (i.e. n = 2, m = 2 and n = 3, m = 3) in the PV model
would increases the initial best fit value. Although more diodes in the multi-dimension PV model results higher initial best fitness
value, the algorithm still convergences after 100 generations for all T = -25 to 75 oC.

V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a generalized multi-dimension diode PV model is introduced to select the best model for each PV cell
technology. Three PV modules of different cell technologies are studied. The results conclude that the single diode PV model is
able to model the output characteristic of KD210GH-2PU multi-crystalline and SP70 mono-crystalline PV module accurately.
However, for the ST40 CID thin film PV module, the maximum power point error increases with temperature. Using the
presented generalized multi-dimension diode PV model, it is found that when n = m = 3, the mean maximum power point error
for the ST40 PV module is similar to the single diode PV model with lower error at higher temperature. The accuracy can be
further improved if more diodes are considered into the proposed model with the drawback of computational cost. Future study of
using the multi-dimension diode PV model will be conducted on other cells technologies, such as the amorphous silicon and
multi-junctions PV modules.

Fig. 8 Best fitness versus generations for T = -25 to 75 oC for ST40 PV module (a) n = 1, m = 2, (b) n = 2, m = 1, (c) n = 2, m = 3 and (d) n = 3, m = 3.

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