A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF SOFT COMPUTING BASED MPPT TECHNIQUES FOR PARTIAL SHADING CONDITIONS IN PV SYSTEMS

Abstract

Nowadays, solar or photovoltaic energy is the most commonly used renewable energy resources in the world. Despite its advantages such as freely available, low maintenance cost, pollution-free, inexhaustible, and reliable, its low conversion efficiency is a major drawback. To increase the efficiency of the photovoltaic system, all photovoltaic modules in the array must be operated at maximum power point. Therefore, maximum power point tracking technique is used for predicting and tracking the maximum power point. In the literature, maximum power point tracking techniques are generally classified as soft computing and conventional. Soft computing techniques are more preferred from both of them, because they can accurately track maximum power point of photovoltaic systems. In this study, an extensive review of soft computing based maximum power point tracking techniques under partial shading conditions until today is presented. The techniques are compared from the point of photovoltaic array dependency, sensors required, tracking efficiency, tracking speed, algorithm complexity, and oscillation around maximum power point.