Maximum Power Point Tracking of a Standalone Photovoltaic System Consisting of a Series Connected Supercapacitor
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https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6258-5986
Aruna Ranaweera Sudath Kalingamudali Nihal Kularatna
Abstract
Standalone photovoltaic (PV) systems are used in remote areas where the utility grid is not accessible. PV panels of a standalone PV system are connected with a charge controller as the first power conversion stage. The efficiency of the power stage of charge controllers is around 90% [1]. Researchers worldwide are trying to increase the power stage efficiency while limited attention is given to finding alternative methods. Reference [2] has presented a possible approach for enhancing the efficiency of a standalone PV system by an additional 9% by connecting a supercapacitor (SC) bank in series configuration with the PV panel and charge controller. This approach utilises a concept called SC assisted loss circumvention theory to develop the proposed system. This theory describes the RC circuit's efficiency enhancement, consisting of an SC bank and a useful load [3]. However, the feasibility of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for this system is yet to be validated. With the variation of incident sunlight and temperature, the power generation of the PV panels varies. With these variations, the maximum power point (MPP) of typical standalone PV systems is tracked by varying the duty ratio of the built-in DC-DC converter's PWM signal in the charge controller by executing MPPT algorithms. A summary of existing MPPT algorithms can be found in [4]. This study presents a comparative study for the adaptation of MPPT for standalone PV systems consisting of a series-connected SC bank with PV panel and buck converter. The buck converter is used as the impedance matching network and is connected to a battery bank and a load as per the typical standalone PV systems. A Static irradiance profile was emulated to observe the static MPPT efficiency. Slow ramp, fast ramp, and ramp and drop irradiance profiles were emulated to observe the dynamic MPPT efficiency of the proposed system. From the results, it was shown that the typical MPPT can be adapted to the proposed type of standalone PV systems as compared with typical systems. Therefore, we hope that these results could be beneficial in developing highly efficient MPPT standalone PV systems soon.
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Standalone PV system, Maximum power point tracking, Supercapacitor, MPPT efficiency
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[3] T. Ariyarathna, D. Jayananda, N. Kularatna, and D. A. Steyn-Ross, "Potential of supercapacitors in novel power converters as semi-ideal lossless voltage droppers," Proc. IECON 2017 - 43rd Annu. Conf. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc., vol. 2017-Janua, pp. 1429–1434, 2017, doi: 10.1109/IECON.2017.8216243.
[4] S. Motahhir, A. El Hammoumi, and A. El Ghzizal, "The most used MPPT algorithms: Review and the suitable low-cost embedded board for each algorithm," J. Clean. Prod., vol. 246, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118983.