What is mppt ?

A mppt is used for extracting the maximum power from the

solar pv module & transferring that power to the load. A dc/dc
converter serves the purpose of transferring maximum power
from the solar pv module to the load. By changing the duty
cycle the load impedance as seen by the source is varied &
matched at the point of the peak power with the source so as
to transfer the max power.
There are several techniques under mppt :
1. Perturb & observe method
2. Incremental conductance
3. Fractional open circuit voltage
4. Fractional short circuit current
5. Fuzzy logic
6. Neural networks
P & o method P&O method is the most frequently used algorithm to
track the maximum power due to its simple structure and
fewer required parameters. This method finds the
maximum power point of PV modules by means of
iteratively perturbing, observing and comparing the
power generated by the PV modules. It is widely applied
to the maximum power point tracker of the photovoltaic
system for its features of simplicity and convenience. It
can be observed that regardless of the magnitude of sun
irradiance and terminal voltage of PV modules, the
maximum power point is obtained while the condition

dP/dV = 0 is accomplished. The slope (dP/dV) of the

power can be calculated by the consecutive output
voltages and output currents, and can be expressed as
follows,
Dp/dv (n) ={ p(n)- P (n-1)}/ {v(n) v(n-1)
where P(n) = V(n) I(n)

Incremental conductance method

The theory of the incremental conductance method is to
determine the variation direction of the terminal voltage
for PV modules by measuring and comparing the
incremental conductance and instantaneous conductance
of PV modules. If the value of incremental conductance
is equal to that of instantaneous conductance, it
represents that the maximum power point is found.
When the operating behavior of PV modules is within the
constant current area, the output power is proportional to
the terminal voltage. That means the output power
increases linearly with the increasing terminal voltage of
PV modules (slope of the power curve is positive, dP/dV
> 0). When the operating point of PV modules passes
through the maximum power point, its operating
behavior is similar to constant voltage. Therefore, the
output power decreases linearly with the increasing
terminal voltage of PV modules (slope of the power
curve is negative, dP/dV < 0). When the operating point

of PV modules is exactly on the maximum power point,

the slope of the power curve is zero (dP/dV = 0).

Fractional open circuit voltage

The maximum power point voltage has a linear dependency
on the open circuit voltage VOC under different irradiance
and temperature conditions.Computing the MPP (Maximum
Power Point) comes down to:
EQUATION : Vmpp = Kv * Voc
The constant k depends on the type and configuration of
the photovoltaic panel. The open circuit voltage must be
measured and the MPP determined in some way for
different ambient conditions. Usually, the system
disconnects the load periodically to measure VOC and
calculate the operating voltage. This method has some
clear disadvantages, temporary loss of power being an
obvious one. An alternate method would be to use one or
more monitoring cells, but they also need to be chosen
and placed very carefully to reflect the true open circuit
voltage of the system. Although this method is quite
simple and robust and does not require a microcontroller,
the constant only allows a crude approximation of the
MPP. Other algorithms will significantly increase the top
power drawn from the same PV installation.
Fractional short circuit current

The MPP can also be determined from the short-circuit

current of the panel (ISC), because IMPP is linearly
related to it under varying atmospheric conditions.
EQUATION : Impp = Ki * Isc
Similar to fractional open circuit voltage, the constant
must be determined for each type of system. Determining
ISC is more challenging, because doing so from time to
time not only increases power loss and heat dissipation,
but also requires an additional switch and current sensor.
Obviously, this increases component count and cost. The
simplest
implementations
do
not
require
microcontrollers, but for better accuracy and to solve
problems related to partial shading, more processing
power is necessary to sweep the panel current from 0 to
ISC, and memorize the output voltage profile.

Neural networks
Artificial neural networks are best suited for the
approximation of non-linear systems. Non-linear systems
can be exactly emulated by multilevel neural networks.
They give best results than other algorithms. Neural
networks contain three layers namely input layer, hidden
layer , output layer . Feed-forward neural network is the
simple type of neural networks. In this type the
information moves in only forward direction, input nodes
to hidden nodes and to output nodes. There are no cycles
or loops in this network.

Fuzzy logic