A novel scanning bat algorithm strategy for maximum power point tracker of partially shaded photovoltaic energy systems

Abstract

Bat Algorithm (BA) is used to track the global peak (GP) of photovoltaic (PV) energy systems due to its fast convergence. Meanwhile, BA has many limitations when it is used as maximum power point tracker (MPPT) of PV systems like the need for re-initialization, and the problem of premature convergence. These problems are solved in this paper by injecting one flying bat to search for greater power than the value of current global best to avoid reinitialization of bats. This proposed strategy sends the flying bat to positions of anticipated peaks when the generated power is changed with certain value to remove the need for reinitialization with highest confidence of capturing the GP. Moreover, the convergence time is reduced by at least 566% compared to the state of the art strategy. The results obtained from this novel strategy showed its superiority in tracking the GP under all operating conditions.