Study on the Effect of Irradiance Variability on the Efficiency of the Perturb-and-Observe Maximum Power Point Tracking Algorithm

Journal article (2022)

Authors

V.A. Martinez Lopez Photovoltaic Materials and Devices - EEMCS
H. Ziar Photovoltaic Materials and Devices - EEMCS
M. Zeman Electrical Sustainable Energy
O. Isabella Photovoltaic Materials and Devices - EEMCS
Research Group
Photovoltaic Materials and Devices (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2022 V.A. Martinez Lopez, U. Žindžiūtė, H. Ziar, M. Zeman, O. Isabella
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/en15207562
More Info
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Published Date

2022

Language

English

Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Electrical Sustainable Energy

Research Group

Photovoltaic Materials and Devices

Abstract

Irradiance variability is one of the main challenges for using photovoltaic energy. This variability affects the operation of maximum power point trackers (MPPT) causing energy losses. The logic of the Perturb-and-Observe MPPT algorithm is particularly sensitive to quick irradiance changes. We quantified the existing relation between irradiance variations and efficiency loss of the logic of the Perturb-and-Observe MPPT algorithm, along with the sensitivity of the MPPT to its control parameters. If the algorithm parameters are not tuned properly, its efficiency will drop to nearly 2%. Irradiance variability causes a systematic energy loss of the algorithm that can only be quantified by ignoring the hardware components. With this, we aim to improve the energy yield estimation by providing an additional efficiency loss to be considered in the calculations.