2020 17th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD'20)

MPPT based on P&O method under partially

shading
Wafa Hayder Aycha Abid Mouna Ben Hamed
Electrical Department Electrical Department Electrical Department
National Engineering School National Engineering School National Engineering School
Gabes, Tunisia Gabes, Tunisia Gabes, Tunisia
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Lasaad Sbita
2020 17th International Multi-Conference on Systems, Signals & Devices (SSD) | 978-1-7281-1080-6/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/SSD49366.2020.9364107

Electrical Department
National Engineering School
Gabes, Tunisia
[email protected]

Abstract— This paper deals with the implementation and

analysis of a control method proposed in the maximum power II. CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PHOTOVOLTAIC
point tracking (MPPT) for photovoltaic systems (PV). The SYSTEM
Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm is implemented in
Matlab/Simulink environment. Many simulations have been The PV system as shown in fig.1 is composed of solar
done considering the different system responses as the duty panel (BP MSX 120) connected to the load through Boost
cycle, voltage and power. The energy losses of the P&O method converter. Thus, to operate PV at maximum power point it is
have been carried out. necessary to generate an adequate duty cycle by
implementation of MPPT programs.
Keywords—Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT);
Perturb and Observe algorithm (P&O); Photovoltaic (PV).

I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, renewable energy becomes a motivating areas
due to widely energy request all over the countries.
Particularly, photovoltaic system is getting more importance
thanks to its advantages related to the environment like less
maintenance, no fuel cost and eco-friendliness [1].
Particularly, solar energy is the current emerging trend with
huge potential to solve surmount energy demand.
Fig. 1. Equivalent schematic for PV system
Photovoltaic system converts solar energy to nonlinear
electrical power [2-5]. PV panel may receive a different
A. PV panel modeling
irradiance, temperature and partially shading [6-8]. To track
the maximum power point, different methods were
The BP MSX 120 panel that is used for experimental tests
synthesized such as Incremental Conductance (Inc. Cond)
contains 72 cells and 4 bypass diodes [23]. The most common
[11-15], Constant Voltage (CV), Hill –Climbing[16,17] and
model of PV cell is the single diode that is presented in fig.2.
Perturb & Observe (P & O) [18-21]. The MPPT controllers
are developed and implemented to test their robustness and
RS Ipv
efficiency under different weather conditions and particularly
under partially shading effect since a several peaks are
Iph ID
created, global and local peaks, in the P-V curve
characteristics which make difficult to track the maximum D Vpv
power point (MPP) [9,10].
The objective of this paper is to simulate and analysis MPPT
algorithm based on P&O for a solar panel (BP MSX 120)
Fig. 2. Single diode model of PV cell.
connected to DC-DC Boost converter [22,23].
In this context, the remainder of this paper is organized as The equivalent circuit of the single diode is described by eq.1
follows. Section 2 presents the model of the PV system. In [24,25,26].
section 3, simulation and results of the PV system under
different weather conditions are discussed. Finally, a
conclusion is derived and presented in section 4.  V pv  I pv  Rs  
 n p  I sc - n p  I 0   e  s t  -1  
n V
I pv 
 
 

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The short-circuit current Isc and the junction thermal voltage
Vt are defined by (Eq.2 and 3).

n s AkT
Vt  (2)
q

G
I sc   IscSTC + ki  (T - TSTC )   (3)
G STC

where np is the number of PV cells connected in parallel;

ns is the number of the series cells ; I0 is the dark saturation
current (A) ; A is the diode ideality factor ; q is the charge of
the electron (C); T is the temperature (K) ; k is the
Boltzmann’s constant and GSTC is the irradiance under
Standard Test Conditions (STC).
To verify the simulations results the BPMSX-120 solar panels
has been implemented under Matlab/Simulink on different
environmental conditions. The panel electrical parameters are
cited in Table 1[27].

TABLE I. BPMSX-120 ELECTRICAL PARAMETERS

Maximum power Pmp 120 W

Voltage at Pmp Vmp 33.7 V

Current at Pmp Imp 3.56 A

Fig. 3. P–V and I-V curves of the PV panel affected by variable irradiance
Short circuit current IscSTC 3.87 A

Open circuit voltage VocSTC 42.1 V

Temperature coefficient of IscSTC ki 0.065 %/°C

Temperature coefficient of VocSTC kv -80 mV/ °C

The output power and current of the PV panel have a

nonlinear behavior in function of voltage. The increase in
solar radiation causes a slight increase in optimal voltage
(Vmp) and augmentation not only in maximum power point
(Pmp) but also in optimal current (Imp) as shown in figure 1
and 2.Thus the increase in temperature leads to decrease in
Vmp and reduction not only in Imp but also in Pmp as
demonstrated in figure 3 and 4. Furthermore, the
augmentation in irradiance with intensity shading, equal to
40%, creates local and global peaks in the P-V curves
characteristics which are designed by LMPP and GMPP
respectively. However, this augmentation provides the
increasing of Vmp and growing of Imp and Pmp values that are
illustrated in Figure 5. In order to find the maximum power
generated by PV panel, a maximum power point controller
must be implemented.

Fig. 4. P–V and I-V curves of the PV panel affected by variable temperature

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 Power (W)

Fig. 5. P–V and I-V curves of the PV panel affected by partially shading Fig. 6. Flowchart of P&O algorithm.

B. Modeling of DC-DC boost converter and design Where d is the step of duty cycle.
The boost converter model as shown in Figure 1 is based on
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
the following equation:
To validate and prove the performance of P&O technique, the
 dV PV 1 algorithm, mentioned above, is implemented and simulated in
 dt  C  I PV  I L  Matlab/Simulink environment under different meteorological
 1
conditions. Thus, simulation is carried out in different
 dV 1  V out  environmental conditions which is distributed over six
  1  D  I L 
out
  (4)
intervals as described in figure 7 and table II. The observation
 dt C2  R load 
of the PV characteristics under different conditions, cited in
 dI 1
 L  V PV  1  D V out  table II, is necessary not only to mesure the maximum power
 dt L (Pmp) and the optimal voltage (Vmp ) but also to make the
differentiation between global and local MPP which are
Where Vpv is the voltage of the capacitor C1 and at the same generated in cases G and H.
time is the output voltage of the PV, Vout and IL are
respectively the voltage of the capacitor C2 and the current
through the inductance L and Rload is the resistance of the load.
To achieve the MPP it is fundamental to adjust the duty cycle
D (0<D<1) of the DC-DC boost converter. The duty cycle
value is calculated by an adequate MPPT controller that is
P&O algorithm.
C. Perturb and observe based MPPT

The P & O technique is based on incrementing or

decrementing periodically the duty cycle that controls the
DC-DC Boost converter depending on the comparison value
between the actual and previous power. Figure 6 illustrates
the P&O algorithm chart [28].
Fig. 7. P-V characteristics in different cases

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 TABLE II. GMPPS AND LMPPS FOR PV GENERATOR UNDER DIFFERENT CASES
Time Case G T SI GMPP LMPP
(s) (W/m²) (°C) (%) Vmp Pmp VLMPP PLMPP

[0,5[ C 600 15 0 35.20 77.52 35.20 77.52

[5,10[ D 800 15 0 34.99 102.52 34.99 102.52
[10,15[ E 800 25 0 33.34 97.43 33.34 97.43
[15,20[ F 1000 25 0 33.02 120.39 33.02 120.39
[20,25[ G 400 25 25 25.17 36.89 37.63 13.94
[25,30] H 1100 25 45 24.63 98.66 37.42 69.99

Fig. 8. Simulation results under different cases given by P&O algorithm: (a) Irradiance profile, (b) Temperature profile, (c) Duty cycle, (d) Voltage and (e)
Power.

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