Control of MPPT for photovoltaic systems using advanced algorithm EPP

Photovoltaic (PV) offers clean source for the generation of electricity, which is however costly today. The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of the PV output for all sunshine conditions is a key to keep the output power per unit cost low for successful PV applications. This paper proposes a new method for the MPPT control of PV systems, which uses one estimate process for every two perturb processes in search for the maximum PV output. In this estimate-perturb-perturb (EPP) method, the perturb process conducts the search over the highly nonlinear PV characteristic, and the estimate process compensates the perturb process for irradiance-changing conditions. The EPP method significantly improves the tracking accuracy and speed of the MPPT control compared to available methods. The paper presents the details analysis of the EPP method.