MPPT Design Using PSO Technique for Photovoltaic System

This paper aims to design the MPPT technique using the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method to track the maximum power at the photovoltaic (PV) system. The direct current (DC)-DC buck converter is used to control the solar PV power. The buck converter operates in both MPPT mode and voltage control mode. The voltage control mode is used only when load power is greater than the maximum power generated by the solar PV plant given the incident irradiance and panel temperature. First, the buck converter was designed based on the specification of the PV panel, and then the design will be modeled using Matlab/Simulink software. After that, the PSO method’s MPPT technique was designed and implemented in the system to track the maximum power. Based on the results obtained, it was found that the PSO parameter had an important effect on the accuracy of the system. The power point of the PV system can be tracked on constant and variations values of irradiances. From the result obtained, it can be concluded that the efficiency of the PSO to track the maximum power is more than 90 % at 200 W/m2 and 700 W/m2 of irradiance. While at 1000 W/m2 the efficiency to track the maximum power is less than 90 %.