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Perturb and Observe Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) is extensively used in charge controllers for extracting maximum power from photovoltaic (PV) module irrespective of irradiance, temperature and load variation. The MPPT technique is mainly used for obtaining the maximum power from the solar PV module and conversion circuit to the load and improving the power quality of PV power generation for grid connection. There are several MPPT methods for example; Perturb and Observe (P&O) method, Incremental Conductance (IC) method, constant voltage method, etc. The standard P&O MPPT technique has drawbacks bordering on fast convergence time to maximum power point, poor system response to fast-changing irradiance and steady-state oscillation with fixed step size. This chapter discusses the detailed operation and implementation of an improved P&O algorithm technique to resolve the various challenges of the standard P&O algorithm. This technique segments the operational region of the PV array into four operating sectors and based on the sector location from the maximum power point (MPP), step size modifications are implemented. Furthermore, critical comparison is made between the new P&O method and the standard P&O method. Finally, both MPPT algorithms have been implemented in hardware to evaluate their performance and efficiency. The measured results show that the average efficiency of the proposed system is 96.89% which is more than 4% higher than the standard system.

The adaptability of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of a solar PV system is important for integration to a microgrid. Depending on what fixed step-size the MPPT controller implements, there is an impact on settling time to reach the maximum power point (MPP) and the steady state operation for conventional tracking techniques. This paper presents experimental results of an adaptive tracking technique based on Perturb and Observe (P&O) and Incremental Conductance (IC) for standalone Photovoltaic (PV) systems under uniform irradiance and partial shading conditions. Analysis and verification of measured and MATLAB/Simulink simulation results have been carried out. The adaptive tracking technique splits the operational region of the solar PV's power-voltage characteristic curve into four and six operational sectors to understand the MPP response and stability of the technique. By implementing more step-sizes at sector locations based on the distance of the sector from the MPP, the challenges associated with fixed step-size is improved on.The measured and simulation results clearly indicate that the proposedsystem tracks MPP faster and displays better steady state operation than conventional system. The proposed system's tracking efficiency is over 10 % greater than the conventional system for all techniques. The proposed system has been under partial shading condition has been and it outperforms other techniques with the GMPP achieved in 0.9s which is better than conventional techniques.