Comparison of P&O and hill climbing MPPT methods for grid-connected PV converter

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques are employed in photovoltaic (PV) systems to make full utilization of the PV array output power which depends on solar irradiation and ambient temperature. Among all the MPPT strategies, perturbation and observation (P&O) and hill climbing methods are widely applied in the MPPT controllers due to their simplicity and easy implementation. In this paper, both P&O and hill climbing methods are adopted to implement a grid-connected PV system. Their performance is evaluated and compared through theoretical analysis and digital simulation. P&O MPPT method exhibits fast dynamic performance and well regulated PV output voltage, which is more suitable than hill climbing method for grid-connected PV system.