A current sensor based adaptive step‐size MPPT with SEPIC converter for photovoltaic systems

Abstract

Abstract Efficient maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is an important problem for renewable power generation from photovoltaic systems. In this work, a current sensor based MPPT algorithm using an adaptive step‐size for a single ended primary inductance converter (SEPIC) based solar photovoltaic system is proposed. Due to lower sensitivity of power to current perturbation as compared to the voltage one, such a scheme is shown to yield better efficiency at steady‐state. A new adaptation scheme is also proposed for faster convergence of the MPPT technique. Hence, the proposed scheme yields better transient as well as steady‐state performance. A prototype converter is used along with digital implementation of the proposed MPPT technique to demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the fixed step‐size and voltage based ones. Simulation and experimental results corroborates the same.

Keywords

• Power electronics, supply and supervisory circuits
• Sensing devices and transducers
• Solar power stations and photovoltaic power systems
• DC‐DC power convertors