I.

AREA OF WORK :
Maximizing the Output of a standalone PV System.

II.

PROPOSED TITLE OF WORK:

Optimizing Power of Standalone PV System using MPPT with Microcontroller.

III.

OBJECTIVES OF WORK :

To design a MPPT to increase conversion efficiency of PV system for given temperature

and solar irradiance.

To design cost effective PV energy conversion System for stand alone application.

Comparing the efficiency of designed sytem against system with no MPPT

implementation.

IV.

INTRODUCTION TO PROPOSED WORK :

Fossil fuel based power plants cause pollution which is harmful to the environment. There is a
growing need for finding alternate methods of power generation, which do not affect the
environment. Green Technologies like solar power, wind power help to alleviate the harmful
effects of the conventional power generation methods.
Now a days Solar based micro grid is gaining popularity. Solar systems use Photo Voltaic Cells to
convert the solar energy from the Sun into electrical energy. PV cell/PV array exhibits non-linear
I-V and P-V characteristics which depend upon atmospheric temperature and sunlight irradiation.
In order to continuously harvest maximum power from the PV arrays, they have to operate at their
Maximum Power Point (MPP) despite the inevitable changes in the environment. Due to this the
controllers of all solar power electronic converters employ some method for maximum power point
tracking (MPPT). To increase the efficiency of PV array, MPPT is used to maximize the energy
conversion from the PV panel.

MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKING TECHNIQUE :A typical solar panel converts only 30 to 40 % solar irradiation into electrical energy.Maximum
power point tracking technique is used to improve the efficiency of the solar panel.According to
Maximum Power Transfer Theorem,the power output of the circuit is maximum when the
Thevenin impedance of the circuit matches with the load impedance.Hence our problem of the
tracking maximum power point reduces to an impedance matching problem.Maximum power
point is the operating point at which the power dissipated in the resistive load is maximum i.e. the
maximum power extracted from the photovoltaic cell.MPPT control is very important for PV
systems.It is responsible for increasing the conversion efficiency and stablization of output under
varying envioronment conditions.So success of Photovltaic Energy Conversion System mostly
relay on efficient operation of maximum power point tracker.
There are different techniques used to track maximum power point1) Perturb and Observe Method.
2) Incremental Conductance Method.
3) Fractional Short Circuit Current Method.
4) Fractional Open Circuit Voltage Method.
5) Neural Network Method.
6) Fuzzy Logic Control Method.

METHODOLOGY:
Perturb and Observe Method :
In this method the controller adjusts the voltage by a small amount from the array and measures
power; if the power increases, further adjustments in that direction are tried until power no longer
increases. This is called perturb and observe method and is most common, although this method
can result in oscillations of power output. It is referred to as a hill climbing method, because it
depends on the rise of the curve of power against voltage below the maximum power point, and
the fall above that point. Perturb and observe is the most commonly used MPPT method due to its
ease of implementation. Perturb and observe method may result in top-level efficiency, provided
that a proper predictive and adaptive hill climbing strategy is adopted.

Fig. 1 : I-V Curve of PV Panel

Fig. 2 : Photovoltaic Energy conversion system using MPPT Technique

Algorithm:
Step 1: Increase the conversion ratio of the DC/DC converter.
Step 2: Measure the solar panel watts.
Step 3: If the solar panel watts are greater than the last measurement,
Then it is climbing the front of hill, GOTO Step 1.
Step 4: Else if watts are less than the last time measurement,
Then it is on the back side of the hill, decrease the conversion ratio and GOTO Step 2.
3

Fig. 3: Flow Chart of Perturb and Observe method MPPT

V.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF PREVIOUS WORK

(LITERATURE REVIEW)

The technical literatures and papers contributed by esteemed authors and scientists that have been
reviewed for the thesis work are covered here along with their works carried out by their own.
Yu, Z., Ogboenyira, K. [1], described the importance of MPPT in solar inverters and various
methods to implement MPPT to maximize the output from a PV system.
E. Moyer [2], described the solar photovoltaic working, its behavior and various properties. The
paper also describes the construction of a simple photovoltaic panel.
Daniel F. Butay [3], explained about the importance of solar panel MPPT using boost converter
and methods to improve its efficiency and determining the performance of the overall system using
simulation. The simulation model of solar panel is used to verify the actual design of the system.
X.Sun, W.Wu, Xin Li and Q.Zhao [4], presented and compared various MPPT techniques to
improve efficiency of PV systems. They proposed a new MPPT method, Estimate-Perturb-Perturb
(EPP) method which reduces the traditional oscillation problem in Perturb and Observe method.
4

M.K.D.Ulaganathan, C.Saravanan, Olivia Ramya Chitranjan [5], presented the cost effective
PV array model implementing MPPT using microcontrollers. Comparison between PIC and
Arduino microcontroller is also made for better implementation of MPPT menthod.
Roberto Faranda, Sonia Leva [6[, provided a comparison between ten widely used MPPT
techniques and their performance is evaluated on energy point of view using Simulink for various
irradiance levels.

VI.

UP TO DATE REFERENCES:
[1] Yu, Z., Ogboenyira, K., MPPT ALGORITHMS", powerelectronics.com.
[2] E. Moyer, Solar Photovoltaic, University of Chicago-EJM May 2011.
[3] Daniel F. Butay, MPPT tracker, http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project042408-181823/unrestricted/PPTReport.doc
[4] X.Sun, W.Wu, Xin Li and Q.Zhao, A Research on Photovoltaic Energy Controlling
System with Maximum Power Point Tracking, Power Conversion Conference, 2002, pp.
822-826.
[5] M.K.D.Ulaganathan, C.Saravanan, Olivia Ramya Chitranjan, Cost-effective Perturb
and Observe MPPT Method using Arduino Microcontroller for a Standalone Photo Voltaic
System, International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 8
Number 1- Feb 2014
[6] Roberto Faranda, Sonia Leva, Energy comparison of MPPT techniques for PV Systems,
WSEAS transactions on Power Systems-Issue 6, Volume 3, June 2008.