New approach of maximum power point tracking for static miniature photovoltaic farm under partially shaded condition based on new cluster topology

Abstract

Photovoltaic is one of the electrical energy generating devices that potential for the future. In a large photovoltaic system, Photovoltaic Farm (PV Farm), there some issues that makes the operation less optimal. One of the problems is the shadow covering on the part of the area of PV Farm named Partially Shaded Condition. In topologies with single converter, partially shaded condition make the characteristic curve of the PV Farm have some multiple Maximum Power Point (MPP). This paper reviews the new approaches to harvest PV Farm by utilize multiple converter topologies for each cluster of local MPP. The total power generated by PV Farm is the sum of local MPP's values in each cluster of converter topologies. Hopely that the total power generated will be greater when compared with the use of MPPT algorithm on only single converter topologies. The use of Modified Perturb and Observe (PnO) Algorithm and Firefly Algorithm for MPPT not only proposed to increase the power harvested from PV Farm but also to reduce the impact of oscillations around the MPP power when the duty cyle is reaching steady state. This paper also comparing the performance of proposed method with Firefly Algorithm and PNO Modified algorithm for single converter topologies.