An Improved Differential Evolution for Parameter Identification of Photovoltaic Models

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are crucial for converting solar energy into electricity. Optimization, control, and simulation for PV systems are important for effectively harnessing solar energy. The exactitude of associated model parameters is an important influencing factor in the performance of PV systems. However, PV model parameter extraction is challenging due to parameter variability resulting from the change in different environmental conditions and equipment factors. Existing parameter identification approaches usually struggle to calculate precise solutions. For this reason, this paper presents an improved differential evolution algorithm, which integrates a collaboration mechanism of dual mutation strategies and an orientation guidance mechanism, called DODE. This collaboration mechanism adaptively assigns mutation strategies to different individuals at different stages to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities. Moreover, an orientation guidance mechanism is proposed to use the information of the movement direction of the population centroid to guide the evolution of elite individuals, preventing them from being trapped in local optima and guiding the population towards a local search. To assess the effectiveness of DODE, comparison experiments were conducted on six different PV models, i.e., the single, double, and triple diode models, and three other commercial PV modules, against ten other excellent meta-heuristic algorithms. For these models, the proposed DODE outperformed other algorithms, with the separate optimal root mean square error values of 9.86021877891317 × 10−4, 9.82484851784979 × 10−4, 9.82484851784993 × 10−4, 2.42507486809489 × 10−3, 1.72981370994064 × 10−3, and 1.66006031250846 × 10−2. Additionally, results obtained from statistical analysis confirm the remarkable competitive superiorities of DODE on convergence rate, stability, and reliability compared with other methods for PV model parameter identification.