Low-cost Photometric sensing for Maximum PV power generation

The Constant Voltage Maximum Power Point Technique (MPPT) method has the drawback of measuring the open circuit voltage V_oc of the Photo voltaic (PV) panel by disconnecting it from the balance of the system. To reduce the circuit complexity, this paper proposes a remedial measure to identify the peak power operating point from the Low cost Photometric Sensor. The measured photometric quantity is to be converted into a radiometric quantity in terms of the irradiance. Hence the mathematical model is developed to estimate V_oc through photometric measurement. Now the constant voltage method can be used to determine the Maximum Power Point from 0.76 percentage of V_oc. The developed mathematical model endorses to find MPPT without disconnecting the PV panel in the real time PV power generation. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through experiments under various weather conditions.