PV Characteristics Plotting Portable Data Logger

Solar photovoltaic systems gain their importance in recent times. The depletion of conventional energy sources paves the way for utilizing renewable energy sources. The solar PV system has better performance and assessment methodologies than other non-conventional energy sources. The power conversion efficiency of the PV system is around 12–24%. There are many research works that are carried out for improving this conversion efficiency rate. Various environmental factors reduce the rated power conversion efficiency of the PV system. The environmental factors are more uncertain and cannot be controlled but their consequences can be reduced in the system. The methodologies for controlling environmental factors’ consequences require a proper data logging system. In this work, a simple and cost-effective online data logger system is designed and developed. A small prototype is developed and validated under different environmental conditions. The obtained results and corresponding graphs are presented in this work.