Hardware based comparison of buck-boost converter topologies in MPPT systems

This paper presents a hardware based comparison of buck-boost converter topologies in MPPT applications. Buck-boost converters perform perfectly compared with the other DC-DC converter topologies without voltage conversion limitations. Comparative analyzes of classical buck-boost, sepic and cúk converters are made in terms of tracking capability, number of components that are used for power stage of these converters, control requirements, whether current of photovoltaic (PV) module is continuous or discontinuous and difficulties of measurement PV module current. Several simulations are performed by using perturb and observe (P&O) algorithm in MATLAB/Simulink environment under different solar irradiation conditions to conduct this research. With the help of this study, a basic technical guide for converter selection in MPPT applications is proposed.