Verification of efficacy of the improved PSO-based MPPT controlling multiple photovoltaic arrays

Photovoltaic (PV) generation systems need maximum power point tracker because the PV power output depends on the operating voltage and current. Further, multiple local maximum power points (MPPs) appear in the power-voltage characteristics under partial shading conditions, hence finding the global MPP using conventional MPPT techniques is a difficult task. To overcome this difficulty, the authors improved MPPT algorithm by introducing a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique. PSO's feature is it uses only one pair of sensors to control and has extensibility in a multiple dimension. In this paper, the authors tried to verify the extensibility of the improved method, Initialization and Repulsion PSO (IR-PSO) in multiple photovoltaic arrays under various types of change in insolation and partial shading conditions. Thereby, these methods resulting in lower cost, higher overall efficiency and simplicity of its implementation. IR-PSO method was verified through simulation and experimental studies. The detailed performance comparisons with other methods, Initialization PSO (I-PSO), Repulsion PSO (R-PSO), are presented.