Int. J. Renewable Energy Technology, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2012 295 Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A comparative study on solar array parameter extraction methods Bidyadhar Subudhi* and Raseswari Pradhan Centre of Industrial Electronics and Robotics, Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, India E-mail: bidyadharnitrkl@gmail.com E-mail: rase1512@gmail.com *Corresponding author Abstract: This paper presents a comparative study on different solar array parameter extraction methods such as a modified Newton-Raphson-based technique proposed in this work and two other popular techniques such as Bouzidi’s Newton-Raphson method and Villalva’s iterative method. A single-diode-five-parameter model is considered in this study for modelling the solar (PV) panel. The parameters of interest such as series resistance, shunt resistance, diode ideality factor, dark saturation current and photo-generated current are extracted under standard test conditions (STC) using open circuit voltage, short circuit current and maximum power point voltage and current from manufacturer’s data-sheet. Comparative assessment of the above parameters extraction methods envisages that the modified Newton-Raphson extraction method provides accurate parameters with simple calculations. Keywords: single-diode-five-parameter PV model; PV array parameters; Bouzidi’s Newton-Raphson method; Villalva’s iterative method; proposed Newton-Raphson method; SSI-M6-205 PV panel. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Subudhi, B. and Pradhan, R. (2012) ‘A comparative study on solar array parameter extraction methods’, Int. J. Renewable Energy Technology, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp.295–315. Biographical notes: Bidyadhar Subudhi received his Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Rourkela, Master of Technology in Control and Instrumentation from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in 1994 and PhD in Control System Engineering from the University of Sheffield, UK in 2003. Currently, he is working as a Professor and the Head of the Department, Electrical Engineering in the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India. He is serving as the Coordinator of Centre for Industrial Electronics and Robotics, in the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela. His research interests include system identification, intelligent control, networked control system and photovoltaic system. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India, Life Member of Systems Society of India and Senior Member IEEE. Raseswari Pradhan received her Bachelor and Master in Electrical Engineering from Utkal University and Jadavpur University in 2002 and 2008 respectively. She has a one year industrial and four years teaching experiences. She last worked as a Faculty in Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of NIST, Berhampur during 2008–2010. She is now working towards her PhD in Electrical Engineering at NIT Rourkela India. Her research interests include photovoltaic power system and its control design.