Using the snake optimization metaheuristic algorithms to extract the photovoltaic cells parameters

•The snake optimization algorithm (SOA) and the Improved snake optimization algorithm (ISOA) are proposed to extract the parameters for photovoltaic cells.•The performance of SOA and ISOA is compared with the ones of the best algorithms from specialized literature.•ISOA proved their performance in comparison with the algorithms considered for the three photovoltaic cells analyzed. The accurate extraction of photovoltaic cells and panels parameters is very important in order to precisely forecast their generated energy, to rapidly identify the maximum power point, both for the manufacturer in order to verify the quality control during the production process, and for the researchers to improve their quality, efficiency and also study the photovoltaic cells degradation. This paper is the first to propose the usage of the Snake optimization metaheuristic algorithms to extract the parameters of three photovoltaic cells: monocrystalline commercial silicon, amorphous silicon, and RTC France. The Snake algorithms are used for the one diode and two diode models to extract five and seven parameters respectively. The root mean square error statistical test has been performed in order to prove the algorithm performance. The comparison with the algorithms published in specialized literature reveals that the Snake algorithm outperforms several others, but is not the best. An improved version is developed and the results show that it gives better results than, or at least the same as the best ones. The improvement in root mean square error, when the improved snake algorithm is used, is 16% in the case of the monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic cell for the two diode model, 5.3% in the case of the amorphous silicon photovoltaic cell for the two diode model, and it is slightly better for the RTC France photovoltaic cell, from 0.002 to 0.11% when the best algorithms are considered. The Snake algorithms give very good results, especially the improved one, even for a small population size and a limited number of iterations. Thus, for the improved snake algorithm, the iterations number and the population size are 100 and 80, in the case of the monocrystalline photovoltaic cells, for one diode model, and 200 and 40 respectively for two diode model, 100 and 120 in the case of the amorphous silicon photovoltaic cell for one diode model and 120 and 120 respectively for two diode model, 150 and 100 in the case of RTC photovoltaic cell for one diode model and 150 and 80 respectivel