Control of a Photovoltaic System Operating at Maximum Power Point and Constant Output Voltage under Different Atmospheric Conditions

This paper focuses on the design, modelling and MATLAB simulation of photovoltaic (PV) panel, DC/DC converters, maximum power point tracker (MPPT), battery, PID controllers and other control algorithms for constant DC voltage output PV system.Overall system is modelled and simulated with MATLAB/Simulink-SimPowerSystems toolbox which is specifically developed to simulate electrical power systems.Commonly used conventional linearization methods are not available for PID controller design for such a system having cascaded pulse width modulation (PWM) switching DC/DC converters causing high nonlinearity, forcing the use of a new alternative technique based on simulated input/output data.PV system is simulated under different atmospheric conditions with variable temperature and irradiation levels, system performance and efficiency is evaluated and it is observed that the designed controllers are capable to operate PV panel at its maximum power point under different atmospheric conditions and provide constant DC voltage to the load while charging the battery with excess power.