Microcontroller based solar power system with grid synchronization

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques are employed in photovoltaic (PV) systems to make full utilization of the PV array output power which depends on solar irradiation and cell temperature. This paper proposes simulation and hardware of a grid connected photovoltaic system which is interfaced with the power system network through a DC-DC boost converter. The maximum power point tracking is achieved by using perturb and observe algorithm having minimum converging iterations. The DC-DC converter is operated in a closed loop mode for tracking the reference voltage generated by the MPPT algorithm to ensure maximum power extraction. The controlling of boost converter and grid connected inverter is done with microcontroller AT89S52. The performance of the photovoltaic system is observed using MATLAB and then implemented on hardware.