A MPPT approach based on temperature measurements applied in PV systems

This paper presents a temperature-based Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) algorithm applied to photovoltaic (PV) systems. The proposed MPPT method (MPPT-temp) employs a LM35 temperature sensor in order to obtain a sample of the photovoltaic module surface temperature and, from it, calculate the optimal voltage to be imposed across the photovoltaic device. Unlike of the Hill Climbing methods, which employ voltage and current sensors to estimate the MPP, in the MPPT-temp the current sensor is substituted by a temperature one, implying in some advantages as cost reduction, accomplishment of the MPP even during sudden environmental (radiation and/or temperature) variations and no oscillations around the MPP in steady state. Theoretical, simulation and experimental results are presented in order to validate the concepts.