• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.164-171
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• 2012

Variable step size maximum power point trackers (MPPTs) are widely used in photovoltaic (PV) systems to extract the peak array power which depends on solar irradiation and array temperature. One essential factor which judges system dynamics and steady state performances is the scaling factor (N), which is used to update the controlling equation in the tracking algorithm to determine a new duty cycle. This paper proposes a novel stability study of variable step size incremental resistance maximum power point tracking (INR MPPT). The main contribution of this analysis appears when developing the overall small signal model of the PV system. Therefore, by using linear control theory, the boundary value of the scaling factor can be determined. The theoretical analysis and the design principle of the proposed stability analysis have been validated using MATLAB simulations, and experimentally using a fixed point digital signal processor (TMS320F2808).

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.503-508
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• 2012

Tracking the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) array is usually an essential part of a PV system. The problem addressed by Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) techniques is to find the voltage $V_{MPP}$ or current $I_{MPP}$ at which a PV array should operate to generate the maximum power output $P_{MPP}$ under a given temperature and irradiance. MPPT control methods such as the perturb and observe method and the incremental conductance method require a microprocessor or DSP to determine if the duty cycle should be increased or not. This paper proposes a simple and fast analog MPPT method. The proposed control scheme tracks the MPP very quickly and its hardware implementation is simple when compared with the conventional techniques. The new algorithm can successfully track the MPP even in the case of rapidly changing atmospheric conditions. In addition, it has higher efficiency than ordinary algorithms.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.218-227
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• 2011

The subject of variable step size maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms has been addressed in the literature. However, most of the addressed algorithms tune the variable step size according to two variables: the photovoltaic (PV) array voltage ($V_{PV}$) and the PV array current ($I_{PV}$). Therefore, both the PV array current and voltage have to be measured. Recently, maximum power point trackers that arc based on a single variable ($I_{PV}$ or $V_{PV}$) have received a great deal of attention due to their simplicity and ease of implementation, when compared to other tracking techniques. In this paper, two methods have been proposed to design a variable step size MPPT algorithm using only a single current sensor for stand-alone battery storage PV systems. These methods utilize only the relationship between the PV array measured current and the converter duty cycle (D) to automatically adapt the step change in the duty cycle to reach the maximum power point (MPP) of the PV array. Detailed analyses and flowcharts of the proposed methods are included. Moreover, a comparison has been made between the proposed methods to investigate their performance in the transient and steady states. Finally, experimental results with field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are presented to verify the performance of the proposed methods.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.1544-1553
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• 2019

The efficiency of photovoltaic generation systems depends on the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique. Among the various schemes presented in the literature, the incremental conductance (INC) method is one of the most frequently used due to its superb tracking ability under changes in insolation and temperature. Generally, conventional INC algorithms implement a simple duty-cycle updating rule that is mainly found on the polarity of the peak-power evaluation function. However, this fails to maximize the performance in both steady-state and transient conditions. In order to overcome this limitation, a novel regulated INC (r-INC) method is proposed in this paper. Like the compensators in automatic control systems, this method applies a digital compensator to evaluate the INC function and improve the capability of power tracking. Precise modeling of a new MPPT system is also presented in the optimized design process. A 120W boost peak power tracker is utilized to obtain comparative test results and to confirm the superiority of the proposed method over existing techniques.