*Article* **A New Hybrid Multi-Population GTO-BWO Approach for Parameter Estimation of Photovoltaic Cells and Modules**

**Hossam Hassan Ali <sup>1</sup> , Mohamed Ebeed <sup>2</sup> , Ahmed Fathy 3,4,\* , Francisco Jurado <sup>5</sup> , Thanikanti Sudhakar Babu <sup>6</sup> and Alaa A. Mahmoud <sup>1</sup>**


**Abstract:** Modeling the photovoltaic (PV) generating unit is one of the most important and crucial tasks when assessing the accurate performance of the PV system in power systems. The modeling of the PV system refers to the assigning of the optimal parameters of the PV's equivalent circuit. Identifying these parameters is considered to be a complex optimization problem, especially with the deviation of the solar irradiance and the ambient temperature. In this regard, this paper proposes a novel hybrid multi-population gorilla troops optimizer and beluga whale optimization (HMGTO-BWO) model to evaluate the optimal parameters of the PV cell/panel; it is based on a multi-population strategy to improve its diversity and to avoid the stagnation of the conventional GTO. The BWO explorative and exploitative powers, which are based on synchronized motion and Lévy flight, are used. The suggested HGTO-BWO is implemented to minimize the root mean square error (RMSE) between the simulated and measured data for each cell/panel represented by a double diode model (DDM) and triple diode model (TDM). The proposed HGTO-BWO is investigated according to the standard and CEC-2019 benchmark functions, and the obtained results are compared with seven other optimization techniques in terms of statistical analysis, convergence characteristics, boxplots, and the Wilcoxon rank sum test. The minimum obtained RMSE values of the PVW 752 cell were 2.0886 <sup>×</sup> <sup>10</sup>−<sup>4</sup> and 1.527 <sup>×</sup> <sup>10</sup>−<sup>4</sup> for the DDM and TDM, respectively. Furthermore, the minimum fetched fitness value for the STM6-40/36 modules was 1.8032 <sup>×</sup> <sup>10</sup><sup>−</sup>3. The obtained results proved the effectiveness and preference of the suggested HGTO-BWO in estimating the parameters of the PV modules.

**Keywords:** multi-population; HGTO-BWO; parameters estimation; PV cell/panel
