Effect of Mission Profile Resolution on Photovoltaic Energy Yield Prediction in Python and MATLAB

This paper studies the effect of the resolution of the mission profile, i.e., solar irradiance and ambient temperature, on prediction accuracy of the photovoltaic (PV) module energy yield. The case study considers integration of a PV module into a DC microgrid (MG). The mission profile that corresponds to North Denmark is utilized as it exemplifies a climate environment with cloudy days with fluctuating solar irradiance. The paper considers the long-term prediction of the PV output power for one year. Mission profile resolutions of 1 s, 10 s, 30 s, 1 min, 5 min, and 15 min are considered. The interface converter between the PV module and DC MG is based on the series resonant converter (SRC) that has buck-boost functionality, which results in nonsmooth efficiency dependence on the input voltage and power. The algorithm predicting the energy yield has been carried out in the Python and MATLAB environments. The performance of the two environments is compared.