MATLAB–based software for modeling and studying grid–tied photovoltaic systems

Abstract

On-grid photovoltaic systems are well known and established systems in countries where solar energy is considered for residential buildings. MATLAB – based interactive software was developed to perform a quick and reliable design of grid – tied photovoltaic systems. The software is one of a kind, since it was the first time to build such a user-friendly comprehensive tool using MATLAB. The reason behind choosing MATLAB as a programming environment was primarily because of its powerful capabilities in numerical computation, data analysis and visualization. MATLAB also offers impressive and easy-to-use tools in applications development using Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The software was originally developed to serve educational purposes in the university domain, keeping in mind that MATLAB is considered a standard tool for tackling engineering problems. In the first stage of this project, the software was created by using simple script programming in m-files, and then these m-files were used later on with Graphical User Interface programming.