A Simple and Portable Electronic Load Aided Photovoltaic Characteristic Curves Plotter (PVCCP)

Abstract

This paper assists in designing a simple and portable photovoltaic (PV) plotting system which can be used for
computation of load at which maximum power would be dissipated and obtain the I-V and P-V characteristic curves
at different load and weather conditions. The proposed method uses an electronic load that acts as a variable dc
load which aids in sweeping the voltage that facilitates to acquire the characteristics of a PV module to check its
functionality at any weather condition. The prevailing systems built are interfaced with personal computing systems
which use simulation software to show real-time curve of a PV Module. These systems can be used to compare realtime curve to that of curves provided by the manufacturer which are stored in their data base. But these systems are
not handy for the researchers or on-site engineers who are willing to study a given PV module. This developed
gadget is a handy one and could serve as first hand information to PV farm site engineers.