Microcontroller Based P&O MPPT for Standalone Solar Power Plants

Generation and utilization of solar energy for power applications assist towards the goal of sustainability. The concern has shifted towards decreasing cost and improving efficiency. Hence, the concept of MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) has been developed to maximize efficiency and provide maximized power output from solar modules. It is important to operate the solar arrays in MPP to extract maximum power leading to a lower ROI period leading to more economic benefits to the end-user therefore it is necessary to use an MPPT. The main aim of developing this project was to extract maximum power from the solar panels under varying environmental conditions by varying the conditions of the control algorithm. The algorithm for MPPT i.e., P&O is written in Arduino IDE and implemented using Arduino UNO. MATLAB/Simulink has been used for simulation of the SPV system and comparing the data obtained in simulation and in real life.