The growing need for electricity and the risks of environmental pollution and global warming are the main problems increasing the interest in renewable and clean energy sources. Solar energy sources using photovoltaic (PV) modules have the main focus among other renewable sources. The increase in the temperature of the silicon-based technology PV modules directly affects the device's current-voltage (I-V) characteristics, adversely affecting the power production and causing a significant drop in efficiency. Therefore, it is insufficient to rely only on the rated efficiency to estimate the output power. One has to consider the operating temperature of the PV module as well as other environmental conditions and structural parameters. The temperature of the PV module is affected by the module material compositions, mounting structure and environmental conditions.

Objectives:

The main goals of this work are to

• Propose a thermal model to estimate the PV module temperatures
• The model could have been constructed by a combination of effective sub-models found in the literature.
• High accuracy of temperature estimation should be targeted; this may require introducing novel concepts to enhance the model performance.
• The model should have verified by comparison to the recent literature.