This paper presents a new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method for photovoltaic (PV) systems. The proposed method improves the working of the conventional perturb and observe (P&O) method in changing environmental conditions by using the fractional short-circuit current (FSCC) method. It takes the initial operating point of a PV system by using the short-circuit current method and later shifts to the conventional P&O technique. The advantage of having this two-stage algorithm is rapid tracking under changing environmental conditions. In addition, this scheme offers low-power oscillations around MPP and, therefore, more power harvesting compared with the common P&O method. The proposed MPPT decides intelligently about the moment of measuring short-circuit current and is, therefore, an irradiance sensorless scheme. The proposed method is validated with computer software simulation followed by a dSPACE DS1104-based experimental setup. A buck-boost dcdc converter is used for simulation and experimental confirmation. Furthermore, the reliability of the proposed method is also calculated. The results show that the proposed MPPT technique works satisfactorily under given environmental scenarios.Index Terms-Efficiency, hybrid MPPT, maximum power point tracking (MPPT), modeling and simulation, photovoltaic (PV).

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SUMMARY This paper presents an optimum sizing methodology to optimize the hybrid energy system (HES) configuration based on genetic algorithm. The proposed optimization model has been applied to evaluate the techno‐economic prospective of the HES to meet the load demand of a remote village in the northern part of Saudi Arabia. The optimum configuration is not achieved only by selecting the combination with the lowest cost but also by finding a suitable renewable energy fraction that satisfies load demand requirements with zero rejected loads. Moreover, the economic, technical and environmental characteristics of nine different HES configurations were investigated and weighed against their performance. The simulation results indicated that the optimum wind turbine (WT) selection is not affected only by the WT speed parameters or by the WT rated power but also by the desired renewable energy fraction. It was found that the rated speed of the WT has a significant effect on optimum WT selection, whereas the WT rated power has no consistent effect on optimal WT selection. Moreover, the results clearly indicated that the HES consisting of photovoltaics (PV), WT, battery bank (Batt) and diesel generator (DG) has superiority over all the nine systems studied here in terms of economical and environmental performance. The PV/Batt/DG hybrid system is only feasible when wind resource is very limited and solar energy density is high. On the other hand, the WT/Batt/DG hybrid system is only feasible at high wind speed and low solar energy density. It was also found that the inclusion of batteries reduced the required DG and hence reduced fuel consumption and operating and maintenance cost. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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This paper presents an improved Fractional Short Circuit Current (FSCC) Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique in which an additional control loop is used to find the proper moment to measure the SCC. The target is to reduce the power losses in MPPT process that occur as a result of intermittent time based short circuit current measurements. The proposed modification enables the conventional FSCC MPPT to decide intelligently about the measurement of SCC thus reduces the number of times the photovoltaic (PV) module is isolated from the load. Although number of algorithms for tracking MPPT has been reported, the proposed method suits well for low cost PV applications. A Matlab/Simulink based model is employed to test the functional abilities of the proposed method. The comparison of the proposed method and conventional time based FSCC method is also presented in the simulation analysis. Finally, a 130 W prototype based on the dSPACE DS1104 controller and experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The technique is verified under uniform shading conditions. The results show satisfactory performance against test conditions.

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