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Original article
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Solar photovoltaic technology has been adopted by various global PV markets with 227 GW cumulative
Received 4 November 2017 globally installed PV capacity in 2015 replacing the conventional fossil fuel energy resources. However,
Accepted 29 April 2018 efficiency is still a big challenge for researchers and PV industry. This paper proposes a solar tracker
Available online xxxx
and modified Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm for the standalone solar photo-voltaic system.
Proposed algorithm confines the search space of the power curve to 10% area that contains Maximum
Keywords: Power Point (MPP) and starts perturbation and observation within that limited search space. The pro-
Perturb and Observe
posed P&O algorithm was simulated in MATLAB/Simulink. Solar tracker makes sure the availability of
MPPT
Solar tracker
uniform and maximum irradiance to the solar module throughout the course of the sun during the
Solar PV day. Confinement of the algorithm’s search space lessened the response time to the changing weather
conditions that in return decreases the steady-state oscillations at the MPP. Integration of the solar
tracker and improved P&O MPPT algorithm provided the better quality and conditioned electricity to
the load. The proposed system was experimentally steered whose results verified the effectiveness of
the proposed P&O algorithm.
Ó 2018 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an
open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction solar trackers and Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPT) are used
to getting the maximum out of the solar modules what they can
Among renewables, solar Photovoltaic (PV) has the capacity to provide (Ahmed and Salam, 2015). As the sun moves through the
compete the conventional fossil fuel-based electricity market. Till sky from east to west, solar radiations accomplished by the solar
2015, global cumulative PV capacity was about 227 GW, out of panel are continuously varied resulting the degraded performance
which 50 GW record capacity was added in 2015 (REN21, 2016). of the solar panel; the PV cell starts operating below its maximum
In various power sectors, PV has achieved solar PV grid parity: a power. Similarly, at higher temperatures performance of the solar
situation when the cost of electricity from grid becomes equal to module is degraded (Almasoud and Gandayh, 2015; Ashfaq et al.,
the cost of electricity from solar PV (Karneyeva and 2017) Varying insolation changes all the parameters (PMAX, VMAX,
Wüstenhagen, 2017). Solar photovoltaic has been subjected to effi- IMAX, VOC, ISC) of the solar cell shown in characteristics curves of
ciency improvement since the invention of the photovoltaic cell. the PV cell in Fig. 1. Solar trackers are used to orienting the PV
Once the photovoltaic cell is made in the laboratory or industry, modules towards the sun to maximize the solar irradiance cou-
its efficiency improvement measures cannot be taken. However, pling. Conversely, PV module performance is always vulnerable
to the insolation variations because of the cloudy season. MPPT
is used to let the photovoltaic cell function at its maximum power
⇑ Corresponding author.
point by properly adjusting the duty cycle of the converter. Till
E-mail address: kamran_ramzan@outlook.com (M. Kamran).
now, various MPPT algorithms have been implemented by the
Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University.
researchers in various papers. Incremental Conductance (INC): it
compares the slope of the power curve and determines whether
to increment or decrement the duty ratio (Shahid et al., 2018), Per-
turb & Observe: it observes the voltage level and perturbs the volt-
Production and hosting by Elsevier
age till it grasps the maximum power point, Artificial Neural
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
1018-3639/Ó 2018 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
2 M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
2. Methodology
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 3
Fig. 4. PV curves under varying solar irradiance. Fig. 5. (a) Solar tracker in shadow mode. (b) solar tracker in tracking mode.
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
4 M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 5
Table 2
Scheme of the P&O algorithm.
Table 3
Area distribution of power curve.
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
6 M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
Fig. 12. PV power for conventional P&O algorithm under STC (1000 W/m2 and 25 °C).
3.2. Hardware setup ino and two analog pins were used for two servo motors. The con-
troller of the Arduino board senses the voltage and after
Solar tracker and modified P&O algorithm were implemented implementing the solar tracker flow chart decides in which direc-
on hardware to validate the usefulness of the proposed PV system. tion the panel is to move; control signal dictates the motor to
For the alignment recognition of the solar module, LDRs were used move.
as light sensors whose changing resistance was translated into a The proposed modified P&O algorithm was implemented for
change in voltage. Two servo motors were used for the movement low voltage solar system using Arduino Uno. To visualize and ana-
of the panel; one for the east-west orientation and other for the lyze the outputs from Arduino Uno, output data was exported to
north-south orientation. Arduino Uno was used for implementing MegunoLink software through the serial port. MegunoLink receives
solar tracker algorithm and control of the motors. Output voltages the data from Arduino’s output pins; draws a graph of the received
from four LDRs circuits were given to four analog pins of the Ardu- data and saves it in MS Excel sheet. Experimental setup of the
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 7
Fig. 13. PV power for proposed P&O algorithm under STC (1000 W/m2 and 25 °C).
Fig. 14. PV Power, voltage and duty cycle under varying atmospheric weather conditions.
proposed MPPT technique is shown in Fig. 16. Fig. 3 shows the diance continuously vary due to cloudy weather conditions and
characteristic curves of the PV module used in hardware setup change in altitude of the sun; solar panel never can deliver maxi-
under varying solar irradiance; Maximum power that it can deliver mum constant power. MPPT tracked the maximum power on the
is 12 W with VMPP 17.8 V and IMPP 0.68 A. Though the solar tracker P-V curve of the solar panel and continued to operate the PV mod-
tracks and adjust the maximum solar coupling position, solar irra- ule at that point. Figs. 17 and 18 shows the PV voltage and PV
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
8 M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx
Table 4
Comparison of different MPPT techniques from literature survey.
Fig. 15. Inductor current, load current and load voltage under varying weather conditions.
power waveforms of the modified P&O algorithm respectively. capacity in 2015 replacing the conventional fossil fuel energy
Power graph in Fig. 18 shows the improvement in the modified resources. However, efficiency and conditioned output power is
algorithm as there are no oscillations at MPP and step response still a big challenge for researchers and PV industry. Power opti-
time has also been reduced to less than 1 s. The hardware results mization strategy plays a vibrant role in the performance of the
validate the simulated results (Fig. 19). solar photovoltaic systems. This strategy is the integration of the
solar tracker and the MPPT to harness the maximum solar power
as it moves through the sky from east to west in a whole day. Dual
4. Conclusions axis solar tracker makes sure the maximum coupling of the sun
with the solar module that maximizes the solar productivity. The
Solar photovoltaic technology has been adopted by various glo- proposed Perturb and Observe algorithm is the modification in
bal PV markets with 227 GW cumulative globally installed PV the conventional algorithm that confines the search space of the
Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006
M. Kamran et al. / Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences xxx (2018) xxx–xxx 9
Fig. 17. PV voltage of modified P&O algorithm. Fig. 19. PV power under varying solar irradiance.
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Please cite this article in press as: Kamran, M., et al. Implementation of improved Perturb & Observe MPPT technique with confined search space for stan-
dalone photovoltaic system. Journal of King Saud University – Engineering Sciences (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jksues.2018.04.006