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Abstract—A photovoltaic (PV) generation system (PGS) is be- generated from a given PV module mainly depends on solar
coming increasingly important as renewable energy sources due insolation and panel temperature. As these quantities vary with
to its advantages such as absence of fuel cost, low maintenance time, it is essential to develop a maximum power point track-
requirement, and environmental friendliness. For large PGS, the
probability for partially shaded condition (PSC) to occur is also ing (MPPT) algorithm to extract maximum power from the PV
high. Under PSC, the P–V curve of PGS exhibits multiple peaks, module at real time. Over the past decades, many MPPT algo-
which reduces the effectiveness of conventional maximum power rithms have been proposed. These methods include perturb and
point tracking (MPPT) methods. In this paper, a particle swarm observe (P&O), incremental conductance, short-circuit current,
optimization (PSO)-based MPPT algorithm for PGS operating un- open-circuit voltage, fuzzy logic control, and ripple correlation
der PSC is proposed. The standard version of PSO is modified
to meet the practical consideration of PGS operating under PSC. approaches. Some modified techniques which aim to minimize
The problem formulation, design procedure, and parameter set- the hardware requirement or to improve the performance have
ting method which takes the hardware limitation into account are also been proposed. These methods mentioned earlier are effec-
described and explained in detail. The proposed method boasts the tive and time tested under uniform solar insolation [6]–[8].
advantages such as easy to implement, system-independent, and In the PGS, multiple PV modules are generally interconnected
high tracking efficiency. To validate the correctness of the pro-
posed method, simulation, and experimental results of a 500-W in series and/or parallel to create a system with the desired volt-
PGS will also be provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the age and loading current capacity. Therefore, partially shaded
proposed technique. condition (PSC) is sometimes inevitable because some parts of
Index Terms—Maximum power point tracking (MPPT), par- the module or the PGS may receive less intensity of sunlight due
tially shaded condition (PSC), particle swarm optimization (PSO), to clouds or shadows of trees, buildings, and other neighboring
photovoltaic (PV) generation system (PGS). objects. PSC can have a significant impact on the power output
of PGS, depending on the system configuration, shading pattern,
and the bypass diodes incorporated in the PV modules. The ef-
I. INTRODUCTION
fect of PSC on PGS has been analyzed in several publications.
HE ever-increasing world energy demand and growing
T concern about environmental issues have generated enor-
mous interest in the utilization of renewable energy sources.
Under PSC, PV modules belonging to the same string experi-
ence different insolation. The resulting P–V characteristic curve
becomes more complex and exhibits multiple peaks [9]–[11].
Among them, the photovoltaic (PV) generation system (PGS) is The presence of multiple peaks reduces the effectiveness of the
an established technology and has rapid growth in recent years. conventional MPPT algorithms, which assumes a single MPP
The advantages of PGS include absence of fuel cost, low main- on the P–V curve. The reason is that these methods are based
tenance requirement, and environmental friendliness. However, on the “hill-climbing” principle of moving the next operating
due to the high investment cost on the PGS, it is vital to make point (OP) in the direction in which power increases. If the
the most of the available solar energy [1]–[5]. A major chal- P–V curve is not unimodal, these methods may only reach a
lenge in using a PGS is to tackle its nonlinear current–voltage local MPP. Since the occurrence of PSC being quite common,
(I–V) characteristics, which result in a unique maximum power there is a need to develop a suitable MPPT algorithm that can
point (MPP) on its power–voltage (P–V) curve. Since the power track the global maximum power point (GMPP) under these
conditions. Some researchers have worked on GMPP track-
ing schemes for PGS operating under PSC [12]–[26]. In [12],
a new MPPT technique which is able to operate under PSC
Manuscript received May 3, 2012; revised August 10, 2012; accepted is presented. To find the GMPP, the voltage factors of all the
September 5, 2012. Date of publication September 29, 2012; date of current
version November 16, 2012. This work was supported by the National MPPs have to be previously assessed once. Therefore, the pro-
Science Council of Taiwan and Taiwan Power Company under contract NSC posed method is system dependent. Kobayashi et al. [13] and
100-3113-p-110-004. Paper no. TEC-00185-2012 Ji et al. [14] propose a two-stage method to track the GMPP.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 106, Taiwan (e-mail: In the first stage, the OP of the PGS is moved to the vicinity
yhliu@mail.ntust.edu.tw; d9707921@mail.ntust.edu.tw; d9707203@mail. of the GMPP using the load line, and in the second stage, it
ntust.edu.tw; m9907113@mail.ntust.edu.tw). converges to the GMPP. However, these methods cannot obtain
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. the GMPP if the GMPP lies on the left side of the load line.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TEC.2012.2219533 Line search algorithms are utilized in [15] and [16] to find the
Fig. 3. I–V and P–V curves of the “3s2p” system shown in Fig. 2. (a) I–V where xi is the position of particle i; vi is the velocity of particle
curve. (b) P–V curve. i; k denotes the iteration number; w is the inertia weight; r1 and
r2 are random variables uniformly distributed within [0,1]; and
c1 , c2 are the cognitive and social coefficient, respectively. The
the equivalent series resistance, and Is is the saturation current, variable pb est,i is used to store the best position that the ith
respectively. particle has found so far, and gb est is used to store the best
position of all the particles.
The flowchart of a basic PSO algorithm is illustrated in Fig. 4.
B. Effect of PSC on PGS From Fig. 4, the operating principles of a basic PSO method can
A PV module consists of several PV cells connected in paral- be described as follows:
lel to increase current and in series to produce a higher voltage. Step 1 (PSO Initialization): Particles are usually initialized
Several PV modules are then connected in series/parallel to form randomly following a uniform distribution over the
a PGS. Under PSC, the P–V curve of PV module will display search space, or are initialized on grid nodes that
multiple MPPs because of the bypass diodes. The characteris- cover the search space with equidistant points. Initial
tics of a PV module under PSC with bypass diodes connected velocities are taken randomly.
at module terminal can be explained as follows. Under PSC, the Step 2 (Fitness Evaluation):Evaluate the fitness value of
shaded cells behave as a load instead of a generator and cre- each particle. Fitness evaluation is conducted by sup-
ate the hot spot. Therefore, bypass diodes of these shaded cells plying the candidate solution to the objective function.
will conduct to avoid this problem. Since the shaded cells are Step 3 (Update Individual and Global Best Data): Individ-
bypassed, multiple peaks in the P–V curve will be presented. ual and global best fitness values (pb est,i and gb est )
As an example, a simple PV module with six cells organized and positions are updated by comparing the newly
in three serial groups of two parallel cells as shown in Fig. 2 calculated fitness values against the previous ones,
is considered. This configuration is named “3s2p” connection. and replacing the pb est,i and gb est as well as their
When this system is under different shading patterns as shown corresponding positions as necessary.
in Fig. 2, the resulting I–V curves are shown in Fig. 3(a). These Step 4 (Update Velocity and Position of Each Particl)e: The
characteristic curves can then be utilized to obtain the P–V char- velocity and position of each particle in the swarm
acteristic curves as shown in Fig. 3(b). From Fig. 3, it can be are updated using (1) and (2).
observed that the GMPP can occur in either the lower or higher Step 5 (Convergence Determination): Check the conver-
voltage range, depending on the type of shading pattern. This gence criterion. If the convergence criterion is met,
phenomenon makes it difficult to directly apply the conventional the process can be terminated; otherwise, the itera-
MPPT algorithms. tion number will increase by 1 and goto step 2.
1030 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 27, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012
k
w(k) = wm ax − (wm ax − wm in ) (5)
kM AX
k
c1 (k) = c1,m ax − (c1,m ax − c1,m in ) (6)
kM AX
Fig. 6. Flowchart of the proposed algorithm. k
c2 (k) = c2,m in + (c2,m ax − c2,m in ). (7)
kM AX
1032 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 27, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012
TABLE I TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE UTILIZED PV MODULE SPECIFICATIONS OF THE IMPLEMENTED BOOST CONVERTER
TABLE III
PARAMETER SETTINGS OF THE IMPLEMENTED ALGORITHM
Fig. 12. I–V and P–V curves of shading pattern 3 (GMPP at left).
the measured waveforms of the shading pattern 1. From Fig. 8,
the proposed MPPT algorithm converges after eight iterations.
Fig. 9 shows the zoomed version of the first six iterations of shading pattern changes and reinitialize the MPPT process ac-
Fig. 8. From Fig. 9, the standard deviation of the found solution cordingly. Due to limited space, more test results are presented
decreases steadily; therefore, the proposed algorithm can obtain at https://sites.google.com/site/pvtestrecord/pvtest_record, in
a converged solution. Fig. 9 also shows that after the sorting pro- which the test results are recorded as video files.
cess, the first particle V1 of the nth iteration is always closet to To compare the performance of the proposed method with
the last particle V5 of the (n − 1)th iteration. Similarly, Figs. 10 other MPPT techniques, the methods proposed in [16] and [17]
and 12 show the characteristic curves of shading pattern 2 and are also implemented. The convergence criteria (Δdcr in [16]
3, and Figs. 11 and 13 show the measured waveforms of shading and perturbation step in [17]) for all the three methods are all
pattern 2 and 3, respectively. From these experimental results, set as 0.3%. The simulations and experiments are conducted
the proposed method can successfully deal with PSCs no matter with the same shading patterns as shown in Figs. 7, 10 and 12.
where the GMPP locates. Figs. 14 and 15 show the dynamic Table V summarizes the obtained results. From Table V, all these
tracking capability of the proposed algorithm. Fig. 14 shows the algorithms can successfully track the GMPP with similar MPPT
changing sequence of the test shading patterns. In Fig. 14, the tracking efficiency. Comparing to the method proposed in [17],
utilized three shading patterns are the same as those in Figs. 7, the proposed algorithm requires fewer search steps. Although
10 and 12. In Fig. 14, each shading pattern lasts 25 s. Fig. 15 the required iteration number of the proposed method is higher
shows the measured waveforms for the dynamic tracking test. than [16], only the proposed method can successfully obtain the
From Fig. 15, the proposed algorithm can successfully detect the GMPP in all the 1000 simulation cases.
1034 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 27, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2012
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