Implementation of Maximum Power Point Tracking to Improving the Solar Cell Efficiency

Abstract

The sun is one of renewable energy sources. The use of sunlight using solar panels as a power plant began to be developed to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Solar panels have the advantage of being environmentally friendly because they do not have pollution-generating waste, are inexpensive and easy to apply. The power generated by solar panel is influenced by temperature and light intensity factor. The main problem of using solar panels is its efficiency is still low. This research presents an attempt to improve the energy conversion efficiency by solar panels by using Maximum Power Point Tracking method. The main principle of this method is adjusting the output voltage from the solar panel to obtain maximum power for different intensity of sunlight. The solar panel output voltage setting is performed using a buck boost converter controlled by MPPT system. The simulation results show that the use of this method of solar panel output power is higher by 64,78% -87,06% than without MPPT.