1.

ABSTRACT

With the demanding energy consumption globally, there is an increasing trend for
the requirement of high efficiency power converters with high power density. The
application for renewable energies including the PV farm, battery storage system
and electrical vehicle become more and more important for the sustainable
development of society. High-power, high-voltage DC/DC converters can fulfill the
role for such renewable energy power conversion.A passive filter is used to
improve the performance of the proposed converter.The photovoltaic (PV)
module has been the interface of electrical energy generation from the solar
irradiation. The solar radiation, ambient temperature and solar cell temperature
are not constant throughout the day. So, the maximum power condition varies all
the time due to which the efficiency of PV cell decreases. To increase the
efficiency of PV cell maximum power point tracking is used. Maximum Power
Point Tracking (MPPT) is an algorithm that includes charge controller that is used
for extracting maximum power available power from PV module under certain
conditions. In addition to the above conditions, the irradiance on PV module is
non-uniform due to shading of trees,clouds etc., called partial shading. Using
conventional MPPT technique such as Perturb and Observe,Incremental
conductance, Hill climbing it is not possible to track maximum power condition in
partial shading condition. The main objective of the present work is to consider
MPPT even during partial shading conditions such that the overall efficiency of the
system is improved.In this paper, a non-linear optimization technique called
Golden Section Search (GSS) is used to track maximum power. The GSS method
has the advantage of converging fast to extremum conditions even under partial
shaded conditions.Detailed simulation of three-level DC-DC converter topology
with GSS algorithm is carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK platform. The validation
of the proposed system is done by the experiments carried out on hardware
prototype with low cost AT’mega328 controller as a

core controller. The proposed system will suit as one of the solutions for PV based
generation system and will show high performance, such as a conversion
efficiency of up to 94%.
I. INTRODUCTION

Tracking the maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) array is

usually an essential part of a PV system. Renewable sources of energy acquire
growing importance due to its enormous consumption and exhaustion of
fossil fuel. Also, solar energy is the most readily available source of energy and
it is free. The rapid increase in the demand for electricity and the recent
change in the environmental conditions such as global warming led to a need
for a new source of energy that is cheaper and sustainable with less carbon

emissions. Solar energy has offered promising results in the quest of finding
the solution to the problem. A great deal of research has been done to improve
the efficiency of the PV modules. A number of methods of how to track the
maximum power point of a PV module have been proposed to solve the
problem of efficiency and products using these methods have been
manufactured and are now commercially available for consumers.

A MPPT is used for extracting the maximum power from the solar PV module
and transferring that power to the load .

Investment in solar photovoltaic (PV) energy is rapidly increasing worldwide

due to its long term economic prospects and more crucially,concerns over the
environment. The solar PV system not only consists of PV panels, but also has
a few power electronic converters for connecting its output to the grid.

Under fluctuation of climatic conditions, MPP changes and MPPT must adjust
the converter duty cycle to track the new MPP. Therefore, the DC-DC
converter must be chosen to be able to match the MPP under different
atmospheric conditions. When the duty cycle changes as a result of changed
climatic conditions, the boundary of the converter design parameters will
change. Three level boost converters have significant advantage as compared
to conventional boost converter. The size of the inductor is reduced and
switch voltage rating is half of the output voltage. This reduces the overall size
and improves the efficiency in three-level DC-DC converters.

The fundamental problem addressed by MPPT is to produce maximum output

power under a given temperature and irradiance.

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE SURVEY

K. Giriraj et al [1], proposed an advanced full-bridge three level DC-DC converter and its

control for wind power systems. A passive filter is used to improve the performance of the
proposed converter. The DC grid provides advantageous things such as absence of reactive
power, harmonics and power factor, which gives an effective solution for the power collection
system for the growing power demand in the present days. The offshore wind turbines are mostly
connected to a DC grid to deliver DC power to a medium or high DC voltage networks. To
minimize power delivery and the DC connection, a high efficient DC-DC converter is required.
The voltage level of the DC network is much higher than the input voltage level of the DC-DC
converter. For this reason, a medium frequency transformer (MFT) with a range of hundreds of
hertz to several kilohertz operating frequency is used for the DC-DC converter. It provides the
galvanic isolation between source and grid. A voltage balancing control technique is given for
the proposed AFBTL DC-DC converter, where the alteration of mentioned operating modes can
maintain the balanced capacitor voltage. With the use of modulation technique and passive filter,
the voltage stress of the transformer is effectively reduced, which is very important in the
medium voltage and high voltage applications.

Ainah Priye Kenneth et al [2], proposed a close loop system which continuously measure
samples of current and voltage from output of photovoltaic module and reference voltage at the
load (lead base light, 24V) to obtain instantaneous power. Base on this, the 555 timer circuit
(pulse generator) constantly takes in DC voltage through a current source to control the duty
cycle of the DC-DC boost converter. Also PSIM and Pspice software were used to simulate
DC-DC boost converter and compare simulation results with the practical operation of the design
system.
Vinod Khadkikar et al[3], This study summarizes the latest approaches to the problem of
maximum power point tracking and serves as a summary or review for future research in
photovoltaic power generation. The latest algorithms of MPPT are classified into the following
categories: the real-time identification method, the extremum seeking control, the particle swarm
optimization, the DIRECT search algorithm, and adaptive step-size method. The study in
concentrates on two critical aspects to improve the performance of maximum power point
tracking(MPPT). One improvement is to accurately locate the position
of the maximum power point (MPP) by using the centered
differentiation. Another effort is to reduce the oscillation
around the MPP in steady state by controlling active
perturbations. A Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm was
utilized to track the MPP for arrays with multiple PV modules
. In the proposed scheme use a centralized MPPT
controller to control the voltage of individual solar module to
reach the global MPP.