An adaptive step size incremental conductance method for faster maximum power point tracking

Maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic array changes with environmental conditions. To obtain the highest possible amount of power from a solar array it should be operated at MPP in its power-voltage curve. An adaptive step size approach along with the standard incremental conductance method is proposed in this paper. This algorithm includes a fixed step S, an exponential factor M and the incremental conductance in the feedback system. This arrangement dynamically changes the step size to obtain the MPP with lesser number of iterations than that of the conventional incremental conductance method. An optimized set of values for S and M was obtained after inspecting their impacts on the accuracy and speed of convergence. The design and analysis was done using Matlab software. This method can be implemented instead of the standard incremental conductance method for its faster convergence speed while maintaining the same level of accuracy.