Implementation of Different MPPT Techniques in Solar PV Tree under Partial Shading Conditions

Abstract

This paper presents the design and analytical modeling of the proposed solar photovoltaic standalone system under varying environmental conditions. The proposed system consists of a unique structure of a solar PV-tree, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique, and DC–DC converter. The output voltage acquired from the solar PV tree is low. A DC–DC boost converter is utilized to step-up the required amount of voltage level. In this paper, the appropriate duty cycle is obtained for extracting the optimum power from the solar PV tree by using various MPPT mechanisms such as perturb and observe (P&O), incremental conductance (INC), and a radial basis function network (RBFN)-based neural network (NN). The proposed solar photovoltaic tree-based energy harvesting system is designed and validated by using MATLAB/SIMULINK software and real-time application. The simulation results of the above-mentioned three techniques are compared with each other in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed system with RBFN. The RBFN-MPPT provides a significant improvement in tracking efficiency of 6.0% and 5.72% as compared with the P&O method and the INC method at 1000 W/m2 irradiance condition. From the simulation and real-time results, it is concluded that the RBFN-based NN provides better tracking efficiency and less oscillation as compared with the other two algorithms.