A novel analytical solution for the PV-arrays maximum power point tracking problem

Due to relatively high initial cost of the PV arrays, full utilization of the arrays output power is highly demanded in photovoltaic (PV) systems. The high tracking accuracy and perfect steady state characteristics of the PV model-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques has drawn a great attention toward these schemes in the past few years. Despite of the accuracy, the model-based MPPT methods suffer from heavy computational burden due to nonlinear characteristics of the PV arrays. In this paper, a novel model-based MPPT strategy for fast and precise tracking of the MPP in PV arrays is introduced. Simplicity and at the same time, accuracy, are the main features of the proposed MPPT scheme. Performance of the proposed MPPT method is evaluated based on digital time domain simulation studies in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. The studies demonstrate the capability of the proposed MPPT technique to rapidly and accurately track the MPP. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is also validated through the experimentation on the 250W MPPT buck-converter.