Parameter estimation of PV solar cells and modules using Whippy Harris Hawks Optimization Algorithm

The significant global trend towards solar energy has led to the development of studies on the fabrication of high-performance solar cells. Accurate modeling and parameter identification of solar cells is of paramount importance. So far, several models have been proposed for the solar cell, including single-diode model (SDM), double-diode model (DDM), and three-diode model (TDM). Each model has a number of unknown parameters and several methods have been presented in the literature to find their optimal values. In this paper, an efficient optimization algorithm, namely Whippy Harris Hawks Optimization (WHHO), is proposed to estimate the model parameters of solar systems. The proposed WHHO is an enhanced version of the HHO algorithm and has the advantages of high convergence speed, global search capability, and high robustness over the original method. To evaluate the efficiency of the proposed WHHO algorithm, it is utilized to identify the parameters of various models of solar cells, and photovoltaic (PV) module. The results are compared with those obtained from a number of other recently presented optimization methods, which shows the superiority of the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, the effectiveness of WHHO algorithm in the practical application has been assessed for the parameter estimation of three commonly-used commercial modules under different irradiance and temperature conditions, which yield variations in the parameters of the PV model. The results obtained from various experimental setups confirm the high performance and robustness of the proposed algorithm.