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Maximum power point tracking with estimation of the capacitance of the capacitor connected to photovoltaic array
Author(s) -
Kasa Nobuyuki,
Iida Takahiko,
Majumdar Gourab
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
electrical engineering in japan
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.136
H-Index - 28
eISSN - 1520-6416
pISSN - 0424-7760
DOI - 10.1002/eej.10150
Subject(s) - maximum power point tracking , capacitance , photovoltaic system , duty cycle , maximum power principle , capacitor , chopper , control theory (sociology) , electrolytic capacitor , diffusion capacitance , power (physics) , inverter , electrical engineering , computer science , engineering , voltage , physics , control (management) , electrode , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
This paper presents a new perturbation and observation method with a capacitance estimation technique for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) in a photovoltaic system. Usually, the maximum power point is tracked by increasing or decreasing the duty ratio of power switching devices. However, it is well known that actual capacitance of an electrolytic capacitor in parallel with a photovoltaic array has 50% tolerance of its nominal value and also that its capacitance value degrades as time passes. If the variation of the duty ratio is determined and fixed using the capacitor nominal value, the MPPT performance may be degraded. Therefore, we must use the actual capacitance in order to improve the MPPT performance. In our system, we applied the model reference adaptive system (MRAS), then obtained the accurate capacitance value and accordingly corrected the duty ratio variation. As a result, it was possible to obtain high MPPT performance. Experimental results show that the proposed method can stably track the maximum power point at widely changing capacitance values by using a newly developed buck‐boost chopper‐type power inverter. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 144(4): 75–85, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10150