Applying Least Mean Square Method to Improve Performance of PV MPPT Algorithm

Solar photovoltaic (PV) system shows a non-linear current (I) -voltage (V) characteristics, which depends on the surrounding environment factors, such as irradiance, temperature, and the wind. Solar PV system, with current (I) - voltage (V) and power (P) - Voltage (V) characteristics, specifies a unique operating point at where the possible maximum power point (MPP) is delivered. At the MPP, the PV array operates at maximum power efficiency. In order to continuously harvest maximum power at any point of time from solar PV modules, a good MPPT algorithms need to be employed. Currently, due to its simplicity and easy implementation, Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithms are the most commonly used MPPT control method in the PV systems but it has a drawback at suddenly varying environment situations, due to constant step size. In this paper, to overcome the difficulties of the fast changing environment and suddenly changing the power of PV array due to constant step size in the P&O algorithm, least mean Square (LMS) methods is proposed together with P&O MPPT algorithm which is superior to traditional P&O MPPT. PV output power is predicted using LMS method to improve the tracking speed and deduce the possibility of misjudgment of increasing and decreasing the PV output. Simulation results shows that the proposed MPPT technique can track the MPP accurately as well as its dynamic response is very fast in response to the change of environmental parameters in comparison with the conventional P&O MPPT algorithm, and improves system performance.