Retrofitting the RSMPPT Technique to Lower Installation Cost

Shifting of focus towards renewable electric power generation has made it imperative that maximum power is drawn from the sources with relatively high voltage in order to minimize losses. Solar energy generation is gaining traction in the recent years thereby it has become necessary that Maximum Power Point(MPP) be tracked as fast as possible. But maximum power point tracking(MPPT) of a number of panels is quite a challenging task apart from the fact that it comes at a cost. This paper brings forward a retrofitting method which will help lower installation costs in large-scale solar PV systems without affecting the performance of the system which uses the Rapid Simultaneous MPPT(RSMPPT) Technique for maximum power generation. The proposed retrofit technique can be used in DMPPT schemes as well, but the control algorithms need to be tweaked accordingly. The proposed technique was verified using MATLAB & Simulink.