Study and Analysis of Distributed Maximum Power Point Tracking Under Partial Shading Conditions

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) energy generation is becoming an increasingly widespread means of producing clean and renewable power. In PV systems, long strings of photovoltaic modules are found to be vulnerable to shading effects, causing significant reduction in the system power output. To overcome this, distributed maximum power point-tracking (abbreviated as DMPPT) schemes have been proposed, in which individual dc–dc converters are connected to each PV module to enable module-wise maximum power extraction. The development of a distributed maximum power point tracking (DMPPT) photovoltaic (PV) system enables us to compensate the shading effect and the PV module mismatching as well as to increase the overall output power. The two main concepts to implement DMMPT systems are series and parallel configuration which describes the connection of the output terminals of the converters. Both systems are studied intensively. Output side sensor based DMPPT system has also been studied. It is also proved that parallel configuration is virtually free of any cross coupling effects.