Evaluating the effects of maximum power point tracking techniques on the reliability of grid-connected photovoltaic systems

Abstract

Despite all the advantages presented by the generation of energy through photovoltaic (PV) cells, the efficiency of energy conversion is currently low, and the initial cost for its implementation is still considered high; thus, it becomes necessary to use techniques to extract the maximum power from these panels, in order to achieve maximum efficiency in operation. In this paper, in order to evaluate the effects of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques on the reliability of grid-connected PV systems, different MPPT techniques employed in PV systems are discussed according to a classification scheme as offline methods, online methods, and hybrid methods. The recursive least squares (RLS) identification algorithm uses to identify local PV system model parameters under different MPPT method. For proper separation of each MPPT method, variation of irradiation is considered as variation of set point. The simulation result shows that, there is direct relations between MPPT methods and overall reliability of the PV system. For this purpose, simulations were made in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment.