A new piecewise adaptive step MPPT algorithm for PV systems

Maximum power points tracking (MPPT) techniques are widely utilized in photovoltaic (PV) systems to operate at the peak power of PV array which depends on solar and ambient temperature. In this paper, a novel piecewise adaptive step MPPT algorithm is proposed to track MPP by automatically adjusting the step. This algorithm combines the advantages of adaptive step MPPT and partition control MPPT algorithms. It divides the whole tracking zone into several small zones, and uses different adaptive step for each small zone. The MPPT model based on the MATLAB/Simulink platform is established, which takes the duty cycle as the control variable. Simulation results show that the proposed method can largely improve the MPPT response speed and accuracy in both dynamic process and steady state simultaneously.