A variable duty cycle Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithm for Wind Energy Conversion Systems

A new Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm employed in Wind Energy Conversion Systems (WECS) is presented. This novel algorithm mitigates the problems of traditional Hill Climb Search (HCS) methods while extracting the maximum power during a change in wind speed. The algorithm also eliminates the oscillations in delivered power once the maximum power point (MPP) is found. To accomplish this, the algorithm employs a variable duty cycle search and terminates the search once the MPP is found. The effectiveness of this proposed algorithm was evaluated using MATLAB-SIMULINK in a WECS with results in the mid-90^th percentile.