A PV plant simulator for testing MPPT techniques

This paper introduces a versatile and reliable photovoltaic systems simulator. It includes the main components of a photovoltaic plant: a PV string and a PWM controlled boost chooper. The key feature of this simulator is the ability to consider different and non-uniform irradiation and temperature conditions (partial shading and partial heating of the strings). All the different I-V and P-V or P-I characteristics can then be determined in such non-uniform irradiation and temperature conditions, with the aim to try different MPPT algorithms. The simulator also allows to verify an enhanced version of the Incremental Conductance algorithm (IncCond) where, in order to reach the real absolute maximum power condition, the reference control current of the boost chopper are periodically reset to a given percentage of the short circuit current at standard conditions. After this perturbation, the steady state power values are registered and compared to establish the final value of reference current that allows the IncCond algorithm to reach a steady state at the real abolute maximum power transfer.