Development of a novel hybrid maximum power point tracking methodology for photovoltaic systems

A novel maximum power point tracking mechanism for solar systems presented in this paper is implemented and analysed using MATLAB/Simulink™ software. Based on the conventional perturbation and observation strategy, this method takes the solar irradiation and cell temperature into consideration and also introduces a novel method to change the step length adaptively in order to improve the transient tracking speed and reduce the steady state oscillation. The numerical results prove that by using the proposed method, better tracking performance together with improved system efficiency can be achieved.