An Enhanced MPPT Method Combining Model-Based and Heuristic Techniques

An MPPT approach combining model-based and heuristic techniques has recently appeared in the literature for accelerating the tracking speed of the maximum power point (MPP) of PV systems. Despite the improved tracking speed, it requires an accurate temperature measurement that increases the cost and complexity of the implementation in comparison to the nonmodel-based maximum power point trackers (MPPTs). This paper proposes an MPPT method, which eliminates the need for temperature measurement. The proposed approach relies on a new set of equations capable of estimating the PV module temperature through utilizing the current and voltage measurements. It combines the well-known heuristic P&O and model-based techniques to ensure an accurate and high speed tracking. The proposed method also uniquely adopts a recently developed simple nontranscendental PV model featuring reduced computational time to reduce the computational complexity of the implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is verified using real-time simulation and experimentally.