PE11

APPLICATION OF INCREMENTAL CONDUCTANCE MPPT

METHOD FOR A PHOTOVOLTAIC GENERATOR IN LABVIEW
Bodan VELKOVSKI, Dejan PEJOVSKI
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia
Introduction PV module simulation and MPPT in LabVIEW
The PV cell output current is calculated with an explicit equation derived The front panel and block diagram of the final implementation of the
by an approximation using Taylor series. model with MPP tracking are shown in Fig.8 and Fig.9 respectively.
The influence of the weather conditions on the PV module operation is
analyzed, through variations in the cell temperature and solar irradiation.
The incremental conductance method is used for MPP tracking and for
calculation of the most suitable load at the MPP.

PV panel mathematical model

The equivalent circuits of a silicon solar cell and a PV module are shown in
Fig.1.
Fig. 5. Front panel of the virtual instrument used for MPPT of the solar
panel model

a) b)
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit of (a) a silicon solar cell and (b) a PV module
The output current of the PV module is implicitly given with the following
equation:
q ( NV RNS I ) N pV R I
S P N S

I N p I ph N p I 0 e kTc n

1 S

Rp .
Fig. 6. Block diagram of the virtual instrument used for MPPT of the

solar panel model
An explicit expression for the current can be derived from the previous
equation with a FOA (First Order Approximation) of the Taylor series Verification and validation of the LabVIEW model
expansion of the expression. The resulting equation for the current is:
In order to verify the exactness of the PV panel model designed in
I

N P I ph N P I o e V

1 LabVIEW, a series of measurements was conducted. The measured I-U
1 RS I o e V , where q / nkTc N s .
curves of the PV panel were compared to the I-U curves generated by the
LabVIEW model of the PV panel in order to verify the model accuracy.
Maximum power point tracking method
The voltage that produces maximum output power (Pmax) in a PV system
depends on the sunlight intensity level and on the temperature of the
cells.

dI I
At MPP: dP / dV 0 dV V
dI I
Left of MPP: dP / dV 0 dV
V
dI I
Right of MPP: dP / dV 0 dV
V

Fig. 2. (a) Incremental conductance method equations(b) incremental
conductance method algorithm
Fig. 7. Comparison between the measured and simulated I-U curves for
three different irradiations.
To verify the model, the coefficient of determination R2 was calculated
and the results are as follows: R2=0.979 for the I-U curve at STC, and
R2=0,908, R2=0,946 and R2=0,952 for the I-U curves shown in Fig. 7
respectively. For irradiation of 260 W/m2, the best matching load is
RL=22.674 , for 145 W/m2 the load is RL=40.446 , whereas for
127 W/m2 RL=48.169 .