Dual tracking efficiency improvement method for photovoltaic systems

Abstract

Solar energy has gained momentum in the past few years with the current focus being on developing solar cells and panels that can be used on a large scale. A large part of the challenge lies in maintaining acceptable levels of efficiency while increasing scale. In this paper, we present a dual tracking methodology to increase the efficiency of existing photovoltaic systems. Our model employs a solar tracking scheme coupled with maximum power point tracking to achieve better efficiency. Solar tracking is used to ensure that the maximum permissible sunlight falls on the panel at any given point in time, while maximum power point tracking ensures load matching. The results are based on simulations performed in MATLAB.