Abstract
Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems continue to be the most prevalent renewable energy resource despite the presence of numerous limitations. A power discrepancy between PV modules on a large scale may result in power dissipation throughout the entire PV system. This particular paper proposes an efficient multi-port converter for distributed maximum power point tracking operation (D-MPPT) for a solar PV system. The operation details of the proposed multi-port converter along with analytical waveforms are presented in this paper. To implement the D-MPPT approach in the proposed multi-port converter, a detailed analysis of mathematical modeling of solar PV systems with a mismatch of PV power and voltage stabilization approach is done. In addition, the proposed approach eliminates the need for additional current sensors and semiconductor components to overcome the effect of mismatched power in the PV system. To validate this, the prototype has been built and integrated with the real environment of the solar PV system. To verify the operation, a detailed simulation study and experimental investigation have been carried out and presented in this paper which reveals that the proposed system offers 24% improved power extraction compared to the centralized converter and MPPT method under partially shaded conditions. After a detailed investigation and discussion of measured results and analysis, it is concluded that the proposed multi-port DC-DC converter is the most suitable solution for solar PV applications.