A New Photovoltaic System Topology Through Load Management

Conventional photovoltaic (PV) systems are designed to compensate for the intermittent nature of solar energy, and therefore require multiple power-managing components like storage batteries, maximum power point trackers, and charge controllers. Each of these components adds an additional cost and has an associated power loss. In this paper, we present a new topology for PV systems. Instead of managing the power from the PV array, our system manages the loads and matches them to the instantaneous maximum power available from the PV array. This results in a far simpler system than conventional systems with a higher efficiency and lower cost for various applications.