A new MPPT method based on a modified Fibonacci search algorithm for wind energy conversion systems

Abstract

In this paper, a new maximum power point tracking (MPPT) method based on the Fibonacci search algorithm (FSA) is proposed for the wind energy conversion system (WECS). The conventional FSA is modified according to the requirements of the WECS to improve its performance as an MPPT algorithm. The performance of the proposed method is investigated for different wind-speed profiles such as step-type and stochastically varied wind speed. Also, the modified FSA based MPPT algorithm is compared with the conventional perturb and observe (CPO) and variable-step PO (VSPO) algorithms. The simulation results approve the superior performance of the proposed method over the CPO and VSPO in terms of maximum power extracted from the system. The real-time performance of the proposed method is also investigated for varying wind conditions in the form of step-up and step-down.