AN INTELLIGENT CONTROLLED TRACKING OF POINT OF MAXIMUM POWER IN STANDALONE PV SYSTEM UNDER REALISTIC VARYING IRRADIATIONS

Owing to the proven footmark for the clean, green energy, compact in size, cost effective and ease of availability of sunlight, applications of photovoltaic (PV) panels are continuously on rise. However, the low conversion efficiency is a major concern for researchers. The conversion efficiency may be improved significantly if PV panels are operating on maximum power point. Solar irradiations received by PV panel are not constant always. The irradiation may be linear and nonlinear, fast, slow and sudden varying in nature. Thus, tracking of maximum power point is a huge challenge. This irregular behaviour of incident irradiations may result in oscillations in output and low conversion efficiency. In order to enhance the performance, a suitably designed controller, operating at maximum power point is needed. This paper highlights maximum power point tracking under varying irradiation conditions (viz. Step Variable Irradiance and Ropp’s irradiance profile) using two control techniques namely Perturb and Observe (P&O) and Incremental Conductance (IC). The simulation results obtained for two control techniques are compared for system efficiency, tracking of maximum power point and enhancement of voltage. The comparison of results reveals that there is far better improvement in overall efficiency, output power, output voltage and faster regaining of the maximum power point path with IC technique as compared to P&O technique. Thus, IC control technique excellently tracks maximum power point with reduced probability of deviation and better oscillation damping under varying incident irradiations.