Efficient Maximum Power Point Tracking for a Distributed PV System under Rapidly Changing Environmental Conditions

Abstract

When conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques are required to operate fast under rapidly changing environmental conditions, a large power loss can be caused by slow tracking speed, output power fluctuation, or additionally required ad hoc parameters. This paper proposes a fast and efficient MPPT technique that minimizes the power loss with the adaptively binary-weighted step (ABWS) followed by the monotonically decreased step (MDS) without causing output power fluctuation or requiring additional ad hoc parameter. The proposed MPPT system for a PV module is implemented by a boost converter with a micro-controller unit. The theoretical analysis and the simulation results show that the proposed MPPT provides fast and accurate tracking under rapidly changing environmental conditions. The experimental results based on a distributed PV systems demonstrate that the proposed MPPT technique is superior to the conventional P&O technique, which reduces the tracking time and the overall power loss by up to 82.95%, 91.51% and 82.46%, 97.71% for two PV modules, respectively. Index Terms-Photovoltaic system, distributed system, maximum power point, environmental conditions, binary-weighted step. P&O MPPT in [20], the variable step size INC (VSSINC) MPPT in [21], [24], the modified adaptive hill climbing (MAHC) MPPT in [22], and the two-step algorithm improving P&O MPPT in [23] may not be universal and thereby exhibit PV module dependency in a distributed PV systems. In addition, the problem of output power fluctuation is yet to be resolved. Another MPPT technique for fast tracking based on the binary-weighted step (BWS) is the successive approximation register (SAR) MPPT in [25]. However, the periodic operation between its active and power-down modes inherently makes the output fluctuate even in the absence of a change in environmental conditions. Moreover, the MSB operation runs

Maximum Power Point Tracking of a Small-Scale Compressed Air Energy Storage System

“…In [6,52,53,54], power electronics are alternatively used in wind and solar energy conversion systems in order to extract the power maximum of the wind turbine and solar panel. For example, a power converter is used to control voltage/current in a PV system [15,55] and speed in a wind system [56,57,58,59,60,61].…”

A comparative study on maximum power point tracking techniques for photovoltaic generation systems operating under fast changing environments

“…Variable step-size P&O method (Hong et al, 2015;Jiang et al, 2013;Kollimalla and Mishra, 2014;Lalili et al, 2011Lalili et al, 2013Liu et al, 2008;Mei et al, 2011;Pandey et al, 2008;Tey and Mekhilef, 2014) The variable step-size P&O method is derived based on the fixed step-size P&O method. In this method, the PS DV REF will be changed according to the position of OP.…”

“…These two methods can take both the transient tracking time and the steady state tracking accuracy into account, and the output power of these systems can maintain stable. In Hong et al (2015), a successive approximate register type MPPT algorithm is proposed, this method tracks the MPP by increasing the PS in a binary manner starting from the least significant bit. After passing the MPP, monotonically decreased step technique is then utilized to find the exact MPP.…”

PV Power System With Multi-Mode Operation and Low-Voltage Ride-Through Capability

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