Quantification of photovoltaic module degradation using model based indicators

One of the most important characteristics of the photovoltaic (PV) modules is their long lifetime (around 25 years). However, recent investigations have shown that PV modules may suffer significant degradation before that time; that is why the development of diagnostic techniques is important for the customers of PV systems. In this paper two indicators to quantify the degradation of a PV module are presented. Such indicators use the single-diode model to represent a PV module without degradation and combine such information with the experimental measurements to estimate the increase in the series resistance and/or the decrease in the parallel resistance with respect to reference values. The estimation of those variations allows the quantification of the module degradation. Simulation results comparing the proposed indicators with the fill factor (a traditional indicator to quantify the electrical quality of a PV module), and other indicators to estimate the series resistance are presented to illustrate the advantages of the proposed indicators.