Fast indirect GMPPT method for PV systems under uniform and partial shading conditions

Abstract

Under Partial Shading Conditions (PSCs), conventional MPPT techniques fail to locate the Global Maximum Power Point (GMPP) for PV generators, and when PSCs change suddenly and repetitively, several GMPP tracking techniques takes time to find or miss the target. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper proposes a new and fast technique that can identify and catch very quickly the GMPP. Due to the use of a PID controller, the PV system is improved in terms of response time and becomes very fast. On the other hand, the proposed algorithm is developed upon other known algorithms and enhanced in order to identify the occurrence of PSCs and to find the GMPP. The measured points during identification and searching process are reduced which increases the power efficiency of the PV system. The time required for the algorithm to catch the GMPP is minimized by 25% compared with other works. To examine the performance of the system a hard scenario, that contains several uniform and partial shading conditions, is used. The simulation is implemented in Matlab/Simulink. The obtained results show clearly the advantage of the proposed technique over others.