Cellular Automata Approach for Electrical and Thermal Behaviors of Photovoltaic Panels

We propose a cellular automata (CA) approach for modeling electrical performances and temperature field of standard photovoltaic (PV) panels. The CA model describes the dynamics of a solar cell operation mode based on the coupling of their temperature and electrical output characteristics. We numerically simulate the operating mode of each cell according to four defined states: direct mode, inverse mode, hot spot mode and failure mode. This makes it possible to compute the generated electrical power and to apply possible countermeasures in the case of a hotspot in order to prevent a failure of the solar cell. This model is adapted to the case of uniform and non-uniform irradiation. Some simulations and experimental results illustrate our approach.