Accelerated photovoltaic maximum power point tracking for partial shading conditions

A maximum power point control suitable for photovoltaic systems operating under uneven irradiance is proposed. Building on the observation that local maxima may occur only at specific string voltage, the searched range is reduced significantly. Thus the proposed controller is proven to identify and track the global maximum much faster than previously proposed ones. In addition the algorithm is simple, does not imply heavy computation and can be implemented in the simplest available micro-processors. Simulation results fully support the proposed approach.