Photovoltaic (PV) modules subjected to partial shading conditions (PSC) can drastically decrease their power output. Hence, there have been various maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control algorithms developed to reduce or counteract the shading effects. Recently, a new meta-heuristic algorithm known as firefly algorithm (FA) was developed, which, under PSC, has been shown to successfully track the GMP. Nevertheless, the FA still has some inherent problems, which may hinder the performance of the MPPT. This paper modifies the existing FA to counteract these problems. As will be demonstrated in the paper, the proposed modified FA (MFA) method can reduce the number of computation operations and the time for converging to the GMP that the existing FA requires.Experimental results show that the proposed method can track the global point under various PSC, has a faster convergence time, compared to the FA, and can effectively suppress the power and voltage fluctuations. Index TermsMaximum power point tracking (MPPT), photovoltaic (PV) array, partial shading, global optimization, firefly algorithm

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