A Novel maximum power point tracker controlling several converters connected to photovoltaic arrays with particle swarm optimization technique

This paper deals with maximum power point tracking control of photovoltaic generators. Photovoltaic generation systems need maximum power point tracker because the PV power output depends on the operating terminal voltage and current. Further, the PV array exhibits two or more MPP's under partial shading condition and hence finding the MPP using conventional techniques is a difficult task. To overcome the difficulty, finding the MPP, the authors have proposed a novel MPPT algorithm by introducing Particle Swarm Optimization technique. Further, the proposed algorithm uses only one pair of sensors to control multiple PV arrays. This results in lower cost, higher overall efficiency and also the algorithm is simple. Proposed MPPT algorithm is verified through experimental studies. Several partial shading conditions were tested and in all these cases the algorithm takes about one second to reach the global MPP. The reachability to MPP is good in both shading and unshading.