PERFORMANCE INVESTIGATION OF MPPT BASED SOLAR CONVERTER

Abstract

In recent past year, due to increase in global energy demand, energy crisis, significant increase in pollution level, global warming cause shifi the attention of whole world towards clean energy resources or renewable energy resources for meeting their demand of energy supply. Solar radiation is one of the kinds of clean energy resources which can be harnessed in multiple ways to reduce the gap between demand and supply of energy. Solar photovoltaic system is one of the ways to utilize solar radiation which converts the solar radiation into electricity by photovoltaic effect. Unfortunately, Solar photovoltaic systems face three major problems: the cost of energy is substantially higher than that produced from fossil fuels, the low conversion efficiency of electric power generation, especially under low irradiation conditions, and the amount of electric power generated by solar arrays changes continuously with weather conditions like temperature and solar radiation intensity. In general, there is a unique point on the V-I or V-P curve, called the - Maximum Power Point (MPP), at which the entire PV system (array, converter, etc) operates with maximum efficiency and produces its maximum output power. The location of the MPP is - not known, but can be located, either through calculation models or by search algorithms. So objective of this thesis work is to track the maximum power point and extract the maximum power available across the PV pane with the help of DC-DC converter and give it to the load. This dissertation presented simulation of Photovoltaic power conditioning system for DC loads. The conditioning system consists a DC-DC boost converter based on maximum power point tracking method. Hardware experimental is also developed for open loop control boost converter.