Experimental Performance Evaluation of POand IC MPPT Algorithms for Photovoltaic Systems under Constant and Variable Environmental Conditions

摘要

To enhance the performance and energy utilization of photovoltaic (PV) systems, efficient maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms are required. The algorithms must be basically evaluated and their performances should be investigated before being implemented in actual systems. In order to experimentally evaluate the performance of MPPT algorithms, many PV testing systems have been designed, however, a low cost and simple experimental system is missing in the literature. In this paper, an efficient and simple PV testing system has been designed and the performances of two well-known MPPT algorithms such as perturb and observe (PO) and incremental conductance (IC) algorithms have been investigated in real time. The evaluation is conducted under both stable and variable environmental conditions using a 180 W PV module. The system behavior is also challenged and investigated by changing the algorithm parameters such as step size and perturbation frequency and the optimized parameters are used for this application. The results show that the developed experimental testing system is a flexible and low-cost system, which aims to easily embed and simulate MPPT algorithms and evaluate them in various environmental conditions.