Maximum Power Point Tracking Technique Using Combined Incremental Conductance and Owl Search Algorithm

This paper aims to develop a new maximum power point tracking technique to obtain the maximum possible power from photovoltaic modules. The technique is based on combining the conventional incremental conductance technique along with the Owl search optimization algorithm. The new proposed technique also aims to simultaneously increase the tracking speed and mitigate the inherent drawbacks of the conventional incremental conductance technique, in particular the maximum power point settling time which is highly affected by the operating duty cycle. The performance of the proposed technique is examined through several Matlab/Simulink simulation case studies under various irradiance and temperature conditions. Basically, three case studies are investigated including the response of the system under standard temperature conditions, step-change in environment temperature and step-changes in irradiance. The simulation results reveal that the proposed technique provides faster tracking time, less oscillation, and higher efficiency as compared to the response of the conventional incremental conductance technique.