Modelling and performance analysis of grid-connected photovoltaic power plant

The photovoltaic system is a very important source of renewable energy. It generates electricity from photons without causing any noise, chemical effects or greenhouse gases emission that could increase the damage occurred to the environment. Turkey is one of some countries that has invested in generating solar power industry because of its suitable location to supply the energy demand and saving the national energy resources. The feasible solution is to substitute some of the conventional electricity energy consumption with clean energy sources such as on-grid PV plants. However, the performance of PV modules is related to several factors such as manufacturing materials, geographic location, shading, operating temperature and others. In order to have a clear vision to understand these systems, some software and programs like MATLAB/ Simulink can be used to simulate PV systems. Simulation is important to save time and money prior installing solar system, it can be helpful to predict the performance and sitting the suitable components. Nevertheless, the work presents a step by step procedure for MATLAB/Simulink Simulation of PV module to investigate the behaviour of the outputs (I-V and P-V) characteristics of a 290W PV panel. Some parameters such as series resistance, parallel resistance, reverse saturation current and photo current are taken into considerations. The approximate parameters are obtained from the manufacturer`s data-sheets. Moreover, KRMN-SNAPS 1.6 MW PV power plant, which situated in Konya Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey, is simulated by using MATLAB/ Simulink to compare the results of simulation with the real data. Finally, the simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed PV system and the performance of KRMN-SNAPS 1.6 MW PV power plant.