Models to predict the operating temperature of different photovoltaic modules in outdoor conditions

The operating temperature of photovoltaic modules under real operating conditions is important information when designing and sizing those systems. This paper proposes new models to predict this temperature for different technology modules under the climate conditions of southern Spain using meteorological parameters. The proposed models are hourly and instantaneous. Those models are compared with previous models existing in the literature. The results obtained show that because of the thermal inertia of the modules, only the proposed hourly models allow the average temperature of the modules to be determined accurately. The temperature of the modules can be predicted using the two-parameter hourly model proposed in this paper with a mean absolute percentage error less than 6.0% for the technologies tested. Copyright (C) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.