The Performance of a Solar Panel with Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) System

Abstract

Due to the rotation of the earth and its spherical shape the availability of sunlight at a certain place is not same. At normal sky condition at a place sunlight is minimum at morning that gradually increase upto 2-3 pm then again tends to minimum. Usually, solar panels are fixed type and can’t absorb the sunlight whole day properly. In that sense, to increase the efficiency of a solar panel with its necessary accessories has been developed where maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system adopted. In this system the panel can easily move to get the maximum sunlight. The electric charges are then store in a battery that are being supplied to the electric appliances. The experimental work has been done at the roof-top of science faculty building of Chittagong University. This experimental study shows that the efficiency of the solar panel starts increasing from morning 9 am with efficiency of 16.64% and found maximum with efficiencies at 12 noon (24.92%); 1 pm (25.94%); and at 2 pm (24.68%) then again starts decreasing with the values of (22.3%) & (18.7%) at 3 and 4 pm respectively. Another, It has also been found that the peak value of average efficiency on July is (24.44%). The achieved efficiencies are more than the efficiency of (15.7%) studied on May-2017 with a fixed-type solar panel at the same place [M. A. Haque et al. 2018].