Simulation Analysis of Hill Climbing MPPT for Photovoltaic System under Partial Shading Condition

Abstract

Photovoltaic systems have become an energy generator for a wide range of applications. The applications could be standalone PV systems or grid connected PV systems. A standalone PV system is used in isolated applications where PV is connected directly to the load and storage system. With a standalone photovoltaic, when the PV source of energy is very large, having energy storage is beneficial. A major challenge in the use of PV is posed by its nonlinear current–voltage (I–V) characteristics, which result in a unique maximum power point (MPP) on its power–voltage (P–V) curve. The matter is further complicated due to the dependence of these characteristics on solar insolation and temperature.

                In this thesis, the HC method is designed to track maximum power from the PV array. Power–voltage characteristic of photovoltaic (PV) arrays displays multiple local maximum power points when all the modules do not receive uniform solar irradiance, i.e., under partial shading conditions (PSCs). Conventional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) methods are shown to be effective under uniform solar irradiance conditions. However, they may fail to track the global peak under PSCs. This thesis proposes a new method for MPPT of PV arrays under both PSCs and uniform conditions. By analyzing the solar irradiance pattern and using the popular Hill Climbing method, the proposed method tracks all local maximum power points. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated through simulations in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment.