Digital Twinning of PV Modules for Smart Systems - A Comparison Between Commercial and Open-Source Simulation Models

As a renewable source of energy, solar power is a promising source for sustainable energy ecosystems; The advantages of employing PhotoVoltaic (PV) modules, although technically feasible, come along with some limitations, including weather dependency, energy storage issues, large space, discrete supply of electric power, etc. Moreover, other than the efforts to overcome the limitations of PV panels, improving the performance is crucial. Digitization of complex cyber-physical systems is a promising approach to bringing into action the massive deployment of PV panels in the energy system. In this paper, we will focus on the computational tools for Digital Twining PV modules as they are an enabler of digitalization. The current study represents the initial phase of a project aimed at designing the Digital Twin of a PV module, which encompasses three primary objectives: firstly, enhancing the resilience of the energy system; secondly, introducing the concept of the Internet of Energy; and thirdly, establishing the Digital Twin as a service (DTaaS). The article details the comparison between open-source tools (pvlib, Photovoltaic-Modeling) with commercial software (Matlab Sim-scape) that forms the backbone of the computational Digital Twins of a PV module. The results show that none of the numerical models performs well under low irradiation conditions. Moreover, the benchmarking reveals a significant disparity in the estimation of shunt resistance (Rsh) between the open-source library (Photo-voltaic Modeling) and the commercial tool.