Design of an Efficient Photovoltaic System using MPPT and P&O Algorithm

Among all renewable energy sources solar energy is the most acceptable solution as it is available in abundant and free of cost worldwide. A typical solar generation system consists of a solar array and a DC-DC converter. DC-DC converters are applied between the source and the load as power conditioning unit to regulate and boost up photovoltaic voltage to desired output voltage. This paper presents a low capacity photovoltaic system suitable for residential purpose. The hard switching method has a large overlapping area between voltage and current of the switch. This area causes switching losses because the power is a product of voltage and current. Switching losses are proportional to the switching frequency. Thus, it is unable to increase the switching frequency. On the other hand, the soft switching method including ZVS and ZCS minimizes the overlapping area. This paper presents maximum power point tracking (MPPT) simulation for a photovoltaic (PV) system. The MPPT is used to find and maintain operation at the maximum power point. Algorithm used is perturb and observe (PO).