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© 2022 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0, The aim of this paper is to present an experimental analysis of a solar module emulator based on a low-cost microcontroller. An Arduino low-cost microcontroller is used to mimic several solar module technologies with high accuracy. The estimation and extraction of the single- diode photovoltaic model parameters is performed by a developed software. Two control strategies are applied to the photovoltaic emulation, one based on the digital proportional integral controller and the second one based on fuzzy logic controller. The emulator is able to follow the module I-V curves for fast and simultaneous real-time change of solar radiation, cell temperature and load, based on an online resolution of the single-diode mathematical model of the photovoltaic module. Finally, the experimental and modeled I-V curves of four different photovoltaic module technologies are compared and assessed the efficiency of the proposed fuzzy logic control strategy compared to the proportional integral control strategy., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

© <2018>. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0, The aim of this paper is to present three years of an evaluation of the performance and degradation rate of three different crystalline silicon-based photovoltaic (PV) modules in the Saharan environment. The PV modules are: mc-Si (multi-crystalline), c_Si (mono-crystalline, back contacted) and HiT (heterojunction with intrinsic thin-layer); they are installed in Saida which is located at the proximity of Algeria’s Sahara. Two methods were used to calculate the degradation rate; the effective peak power of the PV modules and the temperature corrected performance ratio. It was found that the HIT technology performs worse than the other technologies with the highest degradation rate, ranging from -1.53%/year to -1.92%/year. The mc_Si PV and c_Si PV module technologies present a lower degradation rate than the HIT technology in the range of -0.74%/year to -0.83%/year and -0.58%/year to -0.79%/year respectively., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of long term outdoor exposure of two thin film photovoltaic (TFPV) module technologies deployed in semi-arid climate in Saida city located in Algeria. The TFPV modules are: a-Si:H/µc-Si:H (micromorph) and copper indium selenide (CIS). The TFPV modules were characterised by measuring their I-V curves during three years under the same outdoor climate conditions, where the measurement of weather parameters were also performed. The goal of the analysis is to evaluate the degradation rates of the TFPV modules in semi-arid climate. The analysis is based on two techniques, the effective peak power of PV module and power irradiance technique. It was found that TFPV modules CIS and micromorph exhibit a degradation rate of -2.34%/year and -1.73%/year respectively. The calculated degradation rate for CIS technology is higher than those reported in the literature for locations in Europe and lower than those for locations with hot and humid conditions. In the opposite the degradation rate of the micromorph was lower than those given in the literature., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)