Solar panel selection - In a typical module, 36 cells are connected in series to produce a voltage

sufficient to charge a 12V battery

The voltage from the PV module is determined by the number of solar cells and the
current from the module depends primarily on the size of the solar cells. At AM1.5 and
under optimum tilt conditions, the current density from a commercial solar cell is
approximately between 30 mA/cm2 to 36 mA/cm2. Single crystal solar cells are often
15.6 × 15.6 cm2, giving a total current of almost 9 – 10A from a module.  

The table below shows the output of typical modules at STC. I MP and ISC do not change
that much but VMP and VOC scale with the number of cells in the module.

Cells PMAX VMPP IMPP VOC

ISC Efficiency
9.35
72 340 Wp 37.9 V 8.97 A 47.3 V 17.5%
A
9.38
60 280 Wp 31.4 V 8.91 A 39.3 V 17.1%
A
9.35
36 170 Wp 19.2 V 8.85 A 23.4 V 17%
A

If all the solar cells in a module have identical electrical characteristics, and they all
experience the same insolation and temperature, then all the cells will be operating at
exactly the same current and voltage. In this case, the IV curve of the PV module has
the same shape as that of the individual cells, except that the voltage and current are
increased. The equation for the circuit becomes:

where:
N is the number of cells in series;
M is the number of cells in parallel;
IT is the total current from the circuit;
VT is the total voltage from the circuit;
I0 is the saturation current from a single solar cell;
IL is the short-circuit current from a single solar cell;
n is the ideality factor of a single solar cell;
and q, k, and T are constants as given in the constants page.

When cells in series increases – voltage increases

When cells in parallel increases – current increases

The overall IV curve of a set of identical connected solar cells is shown below. The total
current is simply the current of an individual cell multiplied by the number of cells in
parallel. Such that: ISC total = ISC × M. The total voltage is the voltage of an individual
cell multiplied but the number of cells in series. Such that:

ISC(total)=ISC(cell)×M

IMP(total)=IMP(cell)×M

VOC(total)=VOC(cell)×N

VMP(total)=VMP(cell)×N

If the cells are identical then the fill factor does not change when the cells are in parallel
or series. However, there is usually mismatch in the cells so the fill factor is lower when
the cells are combined. The cell mismatch may come from manufacturing or from
differences in light on the cells where one cell has more light than another.

Cost estimation

A Solar PV system design can be done in four steps:

 Load estimation

 Estimation of number of PV panels

 Estimation of battery bank

 Cost estimation of the system.

 Base condition:2 CFLs(18 watts each),2 fans (60 watts each) for 6hrs a day. 

The total energy requirement of the system (total load) i.e Total connected load to PV panel
system = No. of units × rating of equipment = 2 × 18 + 2 × 60 = 156 watts 

Total watt-hours rating of the system = Total connected load (watts) × Operating hours = 156 × 6
= 936 watt-hours

Actual power output of a PV panel = Peak power rating × operating factor = 40 × 0.75 = 30 watt

The power used at the end use is less (due to lower combined efficiency of the system = Actual
power output of a panel × combined efficiency = 30 × 0.81 = 24.3 watts (VA) = 24.3 watts 

Energy produced by one 40 Wp panel in a day = Actual power output × 8 hours/day (peak
equivalent) = 24.3 × 8 = 194.4 watts-hour 

Number of solar panels required to satisfy given estimated daily load: = (Total watt-hour rating
(daily load)/(Daily energy produced by a panel) =936/194.4 = 4.81 = 5 (round figure) 

Inverter size is to be calculated as:

 Total connected load to PV panel system = 156 watts

 Inverter are available with rating of 100, 200, 500 VA, etc.

 Therefore, the choice of the inverter should be 200 VA.

Assumptions

Inverter converts DC into AC power with efficiency of about 90%.

 Battery voltage used for operation = 12 volts

 The combined efficiency of inverter and battery will be calculated as: combined efficiency =
inverter efficiency × battery efficiency = 0.9 × 0.9 = 0.81 = 81%

 Sunlight available in a day = 8 hours/day (equivalent of peak radiation.

 Operation of lights and fan = 6 hours/day of PV panels.

Operation of lights and fan = 6 hours/day of PV panels.

 PV panel power rating = 40 Wp (Wp, meaning, watt (peak), gives only peak power output of a
PV panel)  A factor called „ operating factor‟ is used to estimate the actual output from a PV
module. [The operating factor between 0.60 and 0.90 (implying the output power is 60 to 80%
lower than rated output power) in normal operating conditions, depending on temperature, dust
on module, etc.]

The paper is organized as follows:

 Characteristics of the PV array under normal and partial shading conditions.

 Section 3 presents the general principle of the MPPT methods.
 Section 4 presents the methodology of this work.
 Section 5 presents the most challenges of MPPT methods.
 2 conditions – Normal Condition and Partial Shading Condition

PV Array Characteristics under Normal Condition

Basically, the output of any PV solar system can be defined as a function of the ambient
temperature (T), the solar irradiance (E), the incidence angle, and the spectrum of
sunlight [72].
There are two equivalent models that used to represent any PV module output, single
diode models (SDMs) and double diode models (DDMs) [73]. SDMs [74-78], are easy
and simple

To implement because they require fewer computations compared with DDMs.

Therefore, they are widely used in the PV cell presentation.

DDMs also preferable for PV modeling because they have better accuracy to predict the
PV system performance [79-82].

DDMs approach requires a complex calculation makes it a less popular method. The
equivalent circuit of the PV cell using an SDM is shown in Fig. 1.
The mathematical modelling can be given as [83- 85]

Since DDM requires double diodes, therefore the calculations are way more complex.
Therefore SDM is selected
Equivalent circuit of a PV cell is,

𝐼𝑝ℎ = [ ℎ,𝑛 + 𝐾𝐼 × Δ𝑇 ] 𝐸 𝐸𝑛 (2)

𝐼𝑝𝑣 = 𝑁𝑝 ( ℎ − 𝐼0 [ exp ( 𝑞 ( 𝑉𝑝𝑣 + 𝑅𝑠𝐼𝑝𝑣) 𝑁𝑠𝐴𝑘𝑇 ) − 1 ] − ( 𝑉𝑝𝑣 + 𝑅𝑠𝐼𝑝𝑣) 𝑁𝑠𝑅𝑝 ) (3)

𝑃𝑝𝑣 = 𝑉𝑝𝑣 × 𝑁𝑝 ( ℎ − 𝐼0 exp ( 𝑞𝑉𝑝𝑣 𝑁𝑠𝐴𝑘𝑇 ) − 𝑉𝑝𝑣 𝑁𝑠 ) .

where I0 is the diode saturation current (A), KI is the current temperature coefficient, ΔT is the
temperature difference between cell temperature and ambient temperature (C°), Isc is the PV
short circuit current (A), Voc PV open-circuit voltage (V), KV is the voltage temperature
coefficient, Rs is the series resistance (Ω), RP is the parallel resistance (Ω), Ns is the number of
PV cells connected in series, A is the P-N junction ideality factor, T is the cell temperature (C°),
Iph is the photocurrent (A), E is the in plane solar irradiance, En is the reference solar irradiance
i.e. 1kw/m2, Np is the number of PV cells connected in parallel, k Boltzmann constant (1.38 ×
10−23𝐽∕𝐾), and q Electron charge (1.6 × 10−19 𝐶)

Characteristic two curves –P-V and I-V curves are constant under uniform irradiance
Uniform irradiance = uniform condition

Nowadays, all the installed PV systems are equipped with an MPPT controller. The main function of
MPP trackers is to guarantee to find the MPP rapidly with less converging time, less oscillation, high
accuracy to optimize the energy generation. Finding the MPP can be achieved by search or calculation.
The curve of the behavior of the PV power can be written as [98]:

𝑃𝑃 𝑉 (𝑡) = 𝐹 ( 𝑉𝑃 𝑉 (𝑡), 𝐼𝑃 𝑉 (𝑡), 𝛾(𝑡)

. In order to evaluate the efficiency performance of the MPPT algorithm, the measure yield power should
be compared to the calculated power during the tracking period.

defined as 𝜂𝑀𝑃 𝑃 𝑇 = 𝑡 ∫ 0 𝑃𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑎𝑙(𝑡)𝑑𝑡 𝑡 ∫ 0 𝑃max(𝑡)𝑑t

Commonly, they should find the optimal MPP with less tracking errors in a short time

The most common challenges can be concluded as the nonlinearity of the PV characteristics, ambient
condition variation, and system working conditions.

. Nonlinearity of the PV Characteristic

The I-V characteristic as shown in Fig. 2 is apportioned into three operating regions, the current source
region, power source region and the voltage source region. Due to nonlinearity, the ratio of the voltage
across the PV module to the current through it varies with either the voltage or current. The proportional
change in voltage to change in current is known as a dynamic resistance. The dynamic resistance abides
fixed in the voltage source region because of the linearity of the I-V curve of the PV module, whereas it
abides approximately constant in the power region. The wide divergence of dynamic resistance in the
current source region due to large nonlinearity in the current source region makes it hard to track the MPP
if the MPPT operates in the current source range. To improve the MPP tracking of maximum power
point, it is demanded to operate the MPP in the power region and voltage region before tracking the
maximum power point [104]. Therefore, based on this phenomenon the adaption of the MPPT controller
should be in the power region.

MPPT methods such as P&O and INC use the (P–V) characteristics of the PV panel [105]. In the P&O
method, steady-state oscillations happen after the MPP is reached due to the perturbation made by this
method to preserve the MPP, consequently increases the loss of power

5.2. Ambient Condition Variation

The main major problem of the photovoltaic system is power output is not constant which
fluctuates with weather conditions [85]. The adaptation of the MPPT algorithms under fast-
changing environmental conditions has become one of the main challenges.

5.3. System Working Condition

Most of the MPPT algorithms consider the DC-DC converter as a simple resistance transformer with
fixed efficiency at all voltage levels. Contrary, in reality the DC-DC converter is a non-ideal device, and
cry from many losses. This consideration should be taken into account. Basically, the efficiency of the
DC-DC converter varies based on the duty cycle. Another important consideration, the effective of the
MPPT is the settling time of the applied converter. Mainly, MPPT relies on the current and voltage
sampling to calculate the power at each step. This power is used to define the direction of tracking in
such as P&O method, and for the advanced method is used to define the GMPP. In case the step size of
the MPPT algorithm is less than the settling time of the converter, the sensed values of the voltage and
current would be incorrect and will lead to improper tracking of the PV curve. Since Impp and Vmpp are
to be regulated by the controller duty cycle, the controller design should be carefully considered
otherwise it may lead to instability.

Classification of MPPT algorithms along with the sensing parameters

Can installed on the PV module’s output side

DC-DC convertor outputs

Two control implementations

 MPPT control via the input parameters

 MPPT control via the output parameters

MPPT control via PV side parameters

The power stage input VPV and IPV are used as input to the controller for the MPP tracking
controller as shown in Fig. 8. In this approach, the output power is easily captured directly from
the PV arrays.

Most of the MPPT approaches are using the control variables that sensed from the PV modules
output [111-113]. In this implementation, the power stage input VPV and IPV are used as input
to the controller for the MPP tracking controller as shown in Fig. 8. In this approach, the output
power is easily captured directly from the PV arrays. The power converter control parameter 𝛼
is continuously tuned until the PV array is loaded at its MPP. Firstly, voltage and current at the
 PV generator output (i.e. MPPT converter input) are sensed, and the power is calculated
successively by their multiplication. Then, the MPP is approached in an iterative process [114].

Maximum power point is kept by the power converter by the tuner 𝛼

The MPPT tracks the maximum power point in each instance

This is used by the output parameters

Power converter output parameters are taken and fed to the Maximum Power Point Tracker

The control of MPPT using the output parameters of the converters is been applied in many PV
systems [115-118]. Unlike MPPT control via the input parameter approach, this implementation employs
sensors in the output of the DC-DC converter as measured parameters as shown in Fig. 9.

This approach only requires one sensing output parameter. This merit of the output parameter
based controllers, which tests to different load types, including nonlinear ones, provided that the load
does not include negative impedance property.

positive current feedback is used, it is mainly based on curve fitting. The result of the proposed
method is limited to conditions in which only small divergence in the irradiance level and PV panel
temperature are present and where the PV characteristics are accurately known. To evaluate the
accuracies, the sensitivity of the power to the sensed parameter should be compared.

Sensitivity is defined as [115] ∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝜕𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝜕𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑡 ⋅ ( 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 ) ; ∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝜕𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝜕𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 ⋅ (
𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 )

Series connected voltage load

𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝐸 + 𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑡 ⋅ R

∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 𝐸 + 2 ⋅ 𝑅 ⋅ 𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑡/ 𝐸 + 𝑅 ⋅ 𝑖𝑜𝑢 ; ∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 = 2 ⋅ 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 − 𝐸 /𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 – E

It can be easily shown that ∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑡 > ∑𝑝𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑜𝑢 .

Therefore, it is preferable to sense the output current as of the same relative error, besides sensing
output voltage causes a higher error in the power.

Prefer the output current measurement than the output voltage

As solar is the most clean, abundant and easily available renewable energy source [1], therefore, there is
large interest for its use globally. Solar PV cell shows non-linear P-V and I-V characteristics as shown in
Fig.1. and it can be noticed that at one particular voltage (Vmp) PV cell delivers maximum power (Pmax)
and with change in irradiation and temperature P-V (power-voltage) and I-V (current-voltage)
characteristics change and hence, voltage at maximum power point (Vmp), current at maximum power
point (Imp), open circuit voltage (Voc) and short circuit current (Isc) change with change in irradiation
and temperature (as shown in Fig. 1.).Therefore, there is need to track maximum power point (MPP) and
there are a lot of MPPT techniques that have been reported and most commonly used MPPT techniques
are incremental conductance and perturb and observe MPPT [2]. In this paper perturb and observe (P&O)
technique is implemented.

a) I-V characteristics of PV Cell at different Irradiations (in W/m2). b) P-V characteristics of PV Cell
at different Irradiations (in W/m2). c) I-V characteristics of PV Cell at different Temperatures (in
℃). d) P-V characteristics of PV Cell at different Temperatures (in ℃).

To make it useful for practical purposes these cells are connected in series to get useful voltage
and these series connected cells are collectively called as Module.
Solar PV cell is a P-N junction diode when exposed to sunlight produces 2-3 W at 0.6-0.7 V which
is of no practical use.
The series and parallel connected PV modules to get required voltage and power are collectively
called as PV Array.

PV module parameters

Solar module taken for simulation is Solar Power System TP250MBZ and its data sheet
is shown in Table 1. Table 1Tata Power Solar System TP250MBZ Data Sheet.
PV Module Parameters Values Maximum Power (W) 249
Cells per module (Ncell) 60
Open circuit voltage Voc (V) 36.8
Short-circuit current Isc (A) 8.83
Voltage at maximum power point Vmp (V) 30
Voltage at maximum power point Imp (A) 8.3
Temperature coefficient of Voc (%/℃) -0.33
Temperature coefficient of Isc (%/℃) 0.063805
Twenty such modules are taken to get maximum power of 4.98 kW (at Irradiation (S) =
1000 W/m2 and
Temperature (T) = 25 ℃) are connected as: Number of parallel strings = 2 Number of
series connected modules per string = 10 I-V (Current-Voltage) and P-V (Power-voltage)
Characteristics of PV array at different Irradiation and Temperature are shown in Fig. 2.
and it can be observed from characteristics that at standard atmospheric condition (S =
1000 W/m2 and T = 25℃), Vmp is 300 V , Imp is 16.6 A and Pmax is 4.98 kW of PV
array and these parameters vary with variation in irradiation and temperature .

Characteristic curves for P-V and I-V curves by varying the 2 parameters for the solar
panel selected
DESIGNING OF DC-DC BOOST CONVERTER FOR MPPT
DC-DC Boost converter (Fig. 4.) is used here to vary input voltage (or PV output voltage) by
varying duty cycle. Input capacitor (Cin) and output capacitor (Cout) keeps the input and output
voltage stiff respectively. Inductor (L) reduces the ripple in current. Designing of boost converter
for MPPT is explained in this section.[1],[3]
Obtaining L( basis of estimated Inductor current ripple )= L = V × (V − V ) ∆I × f × V
Where, ∆I is the estimated inductor current ripple and for 1% of maximum output current it can
be calculated as ∆I = 0.1 × I
Above calculated value of inductor must be more than the critical value of inductor (L )
otherwise boost converter will not be able to operate in current continuous mode. Critical
Inductance can be calculated as L = D × (1 − D) × R 2 × f

Obtaining Cout (basis of output voltage ripple)= C = D R × fs × (∆V ⁄V)

Where, ∆V is the desired output voltage ripple and for voltage ripple of 1% of output voltage
above equation can be rewritten as, C = D R ×

Obtaining duty cycle (D) = D = 1 – (Z m –Z0)^1/2

Where, Z is the input impedance at Maximum Power Point and can be calculated as, Z = V m /Im
Load impedance condition = Z0 > Zm

Design Parameters Values Input Voltage at MPP (V ) 300 V

Input Current at MPP (I ) 16.6 A Duty Cycle (D) 0.59
Switching Frequency (fs) 10 kHz (chosen)
Output Voltage (Vo) 730 V
Inductor (L) 0.28 H Output Capacitor (C ) 38.3 µF
Input Capacitor (C ) 10.0 µF
Load Resistance (Zo or R0) 115.84 Ω

DIRECT DUTY CYCLE PERTURB AND OBSERVE MPPT TECHNIQUE

Here we are using Boost Converter to obtain MPP and as for same we know, D = 1 – Vi/Vo,From
above expression it is clear that Vi or Vpv (PV output voltage) is inversely proportional to duty
cycle (D) and in this method we use this relation to find MPP.
Perturbation is done in such a way that, when d(Vi/Vpv )≥ 0 Then decrease duty cycle and as a
result Vi/Vpv increases.
d(Vi/Vpv) < 0 Then increase duty cycle and as a result Vi/Vpv decreases.
This is done to trap the maximum point of the curve