Time domain technique to measure solar cell capacitance

The solar cell capacitance is one of the important parameters for design of a reliable and efficient switching charge controller. In this article a time domain technique is used to measure the solar cell capacitance (charge equivalent). The measurements carried out on GaAs/Ge and BSFR silicon solar cells at different cell voltages are presented and compared with the charge equivalent capacitance derived from the impedance spectroscopy technique. It is observed that the time domain technique is simple, reliable, and can be used for on-line measurements of different types of solar cell/panel capacitance. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.