Overview of Maximum Power Point Tracking Control Methods for PV Systems

Saleh Elkelani Babaa, Matthew Armstrong, Volker Pickert

School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK.

DOI: 10.4236/jpee.2014.28006                

Abstract

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers play an important role in photovoltaic systems. They maximize the output power of a PV array for a given set of conditions. This paper presents an overview of the different MPPT techniques. Each technique is evaluated on its ability to detect multiple maxima, convergence speed, ease of implementation, efficiency over a wide output power range, and cost of implementation. The perturbation and observation (P & O), and incremental conductance (IC) algorithms are widely used techniques, with many variants and optimization techniques reported. For this reason, this paper evaluates the performance of these two common approaches from a dynamic and steady state perspective.

Keywords

Photovoltaic (PV) System, Boost Converter, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT)

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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