Abstract

Solar photovoltaic is of great importance for developing countries like Mauritania and Senegal, without which many villages in these countries would still be facing lack of electricity services for many years to come. The use of solar energy can contribute to the improvement of the living conditions of these populations. This work presents the development of a simulation model for predicting the performance of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system operating under prevailing meteorological conditions at the site location. Mathematical equations developed for modelling the performance of the PV generator are based on power-voltage characteristic of the modules. The simulation model was validated with experimental data from a system installed at the University of Nouakchott, Mauritania. Simulated results from the model under the same operating and environmental climatic conditions are compared with those observed from the experimental tests. Good agreements between these results are obtained with a good correlation coefficient. The simulation model developed can be used not only for analysing the PV system performance, but also for sizing a PV system which is more suitable to the load requirements at any specified location provided that the local meteorological data is available.

Key words: Modelling, simulation, validation, Matlab, photovoltaic generator, meteorological conditions.