A New Method for Maximum Power Point Tracking in Solar PV Systems by Combining Extremum Seeking Method (ESM) and Model Predictive Control (MPC)

One of the newest and most efficient methods for extracting maximum power from solar panels, as well as reducing the generated power oscillations and stabilizing the operating point is the Extremum Seeking Method (ESM), which operates on the basis of the search pattern of the Extremum point on the P-V curve of PV panel. This method has two main disadvantages in terms of a relatively long transition due to the changing environmental conditions, and also the considerable overshoot of PV output power. To overcome this problem, a combined method based on the classical ESM method and model predictive control (MPC) is proposed in this paper that addresses the problems of the classical ESM method. In order to validate the proposed MPPT method, the output power and output voltage of the PV panel are compared to a conventional MPPT method, i.e. P&O method and the simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink and experimental results confirm the accuracy of the proposed MPPT scheme.