A Microcontroller Based Maximum Power Point Tracking Technique for a Photovoltaic System

As photovoltaic (PV) cells do not have very high efficiency, using the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) system is an option to improve the efficiency of the PV systems. The microcontroller based MPPT is a technique to track the maximum power from the PV modules by adjusting the operating conditions of the power electronic devices of the converters. This paper presents the design and building up a PV system to feed a constant voltage load. MPPT system was used in order to obtain maximum output power for the load. In the microcontroller hardware implementation, a boost converter was connected to the PIC 18F46K20 microcontroller to increase the power capability of the PV panel. To track the maximum power point of the PV panel, perturb and observe (P&O) method was used as the control algorithm and the microcontroller was programmed with MPLAB software. The successful operation of the system was verified by the experimental tests. This was supported by the measured values that were summarized and attached to the paper. It can be concluded that using the MPPT can make the PV systems to operate at the maximum power point of the PV module.

Keywords:

photovoltaic (PV) , Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) , perturb and observe method (P&O)