Design and development of low-cost photovoltaic module characterization educational demonstration tool

The increasing demand for pollution-free energy is motivating the mankind towards solar Photovoltaic (PV) based systems. Though PV systems are known to be maintenance-free, the performance of the system has to be monitored regularly to ensure maximum utilization of PV power and to reduce the effect of shading and orientation of the PV module on the output power. Therefore, knowledge of the characteristics of the PV module is necessary for the design of PV systems. A low-cost solar PV trainer kit, which can be used as an educational tool, is developed to study various effects of operating environmental conditions on the PV module output. The purpose of the solar PV trainer kit is to provide an indoor test facility for students to study the characteristics of the module for varying solar insolation, tilt angle, and temperature. It also enables us to find out the various parameters of the PV module, such as the maximum power point, fill factor, and efficiency of the module. The characteristics obtained from the prototype are presented to validate the feasibility of the developed kit to be utilized in indoor applications.