ABSTRACT
A complete computerized system for the characterization and performance testing of photovoltaic (pv) modules under natural sunlight and ambient condition was designed and installed at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). An electronic variable load using transistors can be easily implemented using metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor devices. A ramp generator generates a voltage rising at a constant rate of what is more popularly called a ramp voltage. The data-processing stage is implemented in a user-interactive software, pvmod 3.0. It maintains and processes all the data and provides services such as data formatting, combination of data files, deletion of data, module performance table, graphs of current–voltage (I–V) curves and pv module characterization. The pvmod 3.0 is the third version of computer software coded at AIT in conjunction with pv module performance evaluation and their analysis. Functional software subprograms were added as the needs arose throughout its development stage from version 1.0 to version 3.0.
