A Single-Stage Stand-Alone Photovoltaic Energy System With High Tracking Efficiency

Abstract

A single-stage flyback PV inverter with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) high-speed capability is presented in this paper. The proposed stand-alone photovoltaic energy system (SAPES) incorporates the use of hybrid MPPT to ensure peak energy harvesting under all weather conditions. The proposed hybrid MPPT method combines the conventional short current pulse (SCP) MPPT method and the perturb and observe (P&O) methods. Measurement of the offline parameter [short-circuit current of PV module ( ${I}_{\rm sc}$ )] for SCP is made on the basis of the difference between the offline parameter and the instantaneous current of PV module ( ${I}_{\rm pv}$ ). Use of a single power conversion stage is achieved by employing a modified flyback inverter operating in a discontinuous-conduction mode. The control structure of the conventional flyback inverter is also modified to incorporate the hybrid MPPT algorithm. The proposed SAPES method is tested using computer-aided simulations and real-time hardware in the loop experimentation using the dSPACE DS1104 board. The results obtained using the proposed systems are better than those for the conventional algorithms under the environmental conditions tested.