Voltage Track Optimizer Based Maximum Power Point Tracker Under Challenging Partially Shaded Photovoltaic Systems

In this article, a voltage track optimizer based maximum power point tracking controller for photovoltaic systems under challenging partial shading conditions is presented. The proposed method aims to optimize the operating voltage track while searching for the global maximum power peak (GMPP). This is achieved by bounding the search area by dynamic lower and upper voltage limits. In addition, an improved skipping mechanism is integrated to avoid scanning the unnecessary areas that do not contain the GMPP by exploiting the critical observations in the P-V and I-V curves. Furthermore, the initial operating voltage is exploited to accelerate the tracking speed. By doing so, the voltage track length is drastically reduced, which results in reducing the tracking time. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated against two recent GMPPT methods, namely improved team game optimization and modified maximum power trapezium through MATLAB/Simulink environment. Besides, the simulation results are verified experimentally via a buck-boost converter. The obtained results prove the superiority of the proposed algorithm against the compared algorithms in terms of voltage track length, tracking speed, and transient energy losses.