Evaluation of Incremental conductance and Firefly algorithm for PV MPPT application under partial shade condition

Several maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms for photovoltaic applications have been proposed in literatures. Among them, classical techniques like perturb and observe (P&O), incremental conductance (InCond) and constant voltage are widely used because of simple implementation and less complexity. However, they have drawbacks of failure to track right perturbation direction during rapid change in climatic conditions, steady-sate oscillation and failure to track global maximum power point (GMPP) among multiple local and global peaks when ever the PV system is operating under partial shade condition. In this paper performance evaluations of MPPT techniques using Firefly algorithm (FFA) and InCond technique for PV system under partial shad condition has been done. The results using FFA revealed accurate GMPP tracking capability, fast dynamic response for rapid change in shade pattern, small amplitude of oscillation and steady state error than InCond technique.