A Technique for Tracking the Global Peak of PV Arrays During Partially Shaded Conditions Using the Detection of Current Source and Voltage Source Regions of I–V Curves

Abstract

This article proposes a methodto track the global peak (GP) when the photovoltaic (PV) arrays receive uniform or partial irradiance. The proposed method employs the current–voltage ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">I</i> – <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">V</i> ) curve of the PV generator to track the maximum power point. It can distinguish whether the operating voltage is lying in the voltage source region (VSR) or the current source region (CSR) of the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">I–V</i> curve using current information at different operating points. It also uses the slope of the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">I–V</i> curve for discriminating CSR and VSR. This helps the algorithm track the movement of the operating point from VSR to CSR, which further helps in avoiding the false tracking of local peaks (LPs) during global maximum power point tracking. After all LPs are tracked, the LP with maximum power is set as a GP.The performance of the presented algorithm is verified using simulation in the MATLAB/Simulink environment and also supported with experimental results using hardware setup.