With the wide acceptance of modeling a PV cell by a single diode, a series and parallel resistors; many researchers have discussed different mathematical forms and iterative techniques to extract the values of these model elements depending on the key parameters provided by the manufacturer datasheet. This paper avoids iterative techniques and obtains the values of the five parameters of the one diode model by developing closed form expressions. The maximum error produced by this technique is 10% when compared to the exact values of the one diode model circuit built by Spice. The 10% maximum error has occurred during the estimation of the reverse saturation current (Io) of the diode, nevertheless, it should be mentioned that even for this same parameter the model outperforms many iterative dependent works. Furthermore, this paper discusses the effect of temperature on the operation performance of PV cells. In particular, the temperature effect on the open circuit voltage, the short circuit current, the fill factor, the reverse saturation current, and the conversion efficiency was modeled and evaluated for different brand technologies

<abstract> <p>Degradation of PV modules have a severe impact on its power-producing capabilities thus affecting the reliability, performance over the long run. To understand the PV degradation happening under the influence of local environmental conditions a survey was conducted on six polycrystalline silicon-based PV modules over five years. It has been observed that the average degradation rates stood at 1.02%/year at irradiances 800 W/m² and 0.99%/year at irradiances 600 W/m², which are almost double the manufacturer proposed values. Upon further investigations, it has been found that discoloration of encapsulant in modules 3, 5, and 6 have been the main factor causing the reduction of the short circuit current (I_sc) thus affecting the overall power production capacity of the installed PV system. Considering the amount of time, resources and manpower invested to perform this survey an alternate way of estimating the PV degradation rates is also investigated. The exponential decay factor-based model is adopted to correlate the encapsulant discoloration seen on-site in the form of a mathematical equation to predict the current loss. This loss is defined as the visual loss factor in this paper. Further, the output I-V curves are simulated using MATLAB Simulink-based mathematical model which also integrates visual loss factor (VLF) losses into it. Such simulated I-V curves have shown a good match with the measured I-V curves at the same irradiance with an error less than 3%. Authors anticipate that this modelling approach can open the door for further research in developing algorithms that can simulate the PV degradation rates.</p> </abstract>