Among all renewable energy sources, solar cells are considered the most popular solution for a clean source of energy and have a wide range of applications from few watts to Megawatt industrial and domestic loads. Building a precise mathematical model based on nonlinear equations for solar cells as well as photovoltaic (PV) modules is an essential issue for reasonable performance assessment, control and optimal operation of PV energy systems. In the current study, a novel optimization algorithm, Tree Growth Algorithm (TGA), is applied for accurate and efficient extraction of the unknown solar cell and PV module parameters. TGA is applied for identifying the values of the unknown parameters of various solar cells and PV modules based on different diode models. Single diode model (SDM), double diode model (DDM) and three diode model (TDM) are investigated in the mathematical models of both solar cells and PV modules. The obtained results from the application of TGA to achieve this objective are compared with different algorithms reported in the literature. Moreover, the results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm of TGA superior to other reported methods. The good matching of the I-V characteristic curve of the computed parameters with those of the measured data from the manufacturer's PV modules/cells datasheet proved that the proposed TGA may function as a competitor to the methods provided in literature for parameters' identification of PV of solar cells.

In recent years, modular multilevel converters (MMC) are becoming popular in the distribution and transmission of electrical systems. The multilevel converter suffers from circulating current within the converter that increases the conduction loss of switches and increases the thermal stress on the capacitors and switches’ IGBTs. One of the main solutions to control the circulating current is to keep the capacitor voltage balanced in the MMC. In this paper, a new hybrid control algorithm for the cascaded modular multilevel converter is presented. The Harris hawk’s optimization (HHO) and Atom search optimization (ASO) are used to optimally design the controller of the hybrid MMC. The proposed structure of modular multilevel inverters allows effective operation, a low level of harmonic distortion in the absence of output voltage filters, a low switching frequency, and excellent flexibility to achieve the requirements of any voltage level. The effectiveness of the proposed controller and the multilevel converter has been verified through testing with the application of the MMC-static synchronous compensator (STATCOM). The stability of the voltage capacitors was monitored with balanced and unbalanced loads on the studied network.

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