An investigation of incremental conductance based maximum power point tracking for photovoltaic water pumping system performances

Abstract

In this work, each components of the photovoltaic water pumping system have been modeled in the Matlab/Simulink platform using meteorological data obtained from the field for the specific month corresponding to the hottest one of the year and for different total heads or pump loads. Optimization is done using the incremental conductance MPPT techniques which help to track the maximum power available in the photovoltaic module at each time and then feed the pump with optimal power. The results of this simulations show the effectiveness of the optimized system compare to the direct-coupled one. For the considered water pumps, daily flow rates are predicted and permit to calculate monthly total volume of water which is in the range of 122 m3 to 200 m3 for the total heads in the range of 60 m to 24 m with optimization and in the range of 12 m3 to 43 m3 for the same range of total heads without optimization. This study also shows the relevance of the optimized system compare to the direct-coupled system for providing water in rural areas of soudano-sahelian zone of Cameroon.