Real Time Implementation of Maximum Power Point and Insolation Tracking Under Normal and Partial Shading Conditions for Standalone PV System

Due to various environmental conditions, the solar photovoltaic (PV) modules' output power is not always the maximum power they can produce. It becomes inexorable to track the maximum power point by adopting suitable techniques. Various methods are available to perform this tracking process, and perturb and observe (P&O) method is widely used due to its ease of implementation and simplicity. Although this method can track the maximum power point effectively, it has some limitations, like oscillation near the local maximum, thus preventing it from reaching the global maximum during partial shading conditions and increasing the time response. The power extracted will not be the actual maximum power that can be produced by the PV modules. To vanquish these impediments, a method that combines the P&O method with isolation tracking is proposed in this literature. The proposed method is more efficient than the traditional P&O method in extracting the maximum power under normal and partial shading conditions. The robustness of the proposed method is demonstrated by simulating the developed system, and the results are validated by the prototype developed.