A modified fractional short circuit current MPPT and multicellular converter for improving power quality and efficiency in PV chain

Abstract

This article presents the contribution of multicellular converters in improving of the quality of power produced in photovoltaic chain, with the aim of exploiting the maximum power produced by the photovoltaic generator with low oscillations around of the maximum power point (MPP) at steady state and to reduce switching losses. After modeling the multicellular parallel boost converter, fractional short circuit current (FSCC) MPPT was modified to get an estimated photocurrent as a reference to control the inductance current for good functioning of the converter in pursuit of the maximum power point. To verify the performance of the proposed solution, the system was submitted to irradiance and temperature variations. The simulations carried out in the Matlab/Simulink environment presented satisfactory results of the proposed solution, in comparison with the high-gain quadratic boost converter we have a response time of 0.04 s, power oscillations at maximum point around 0.05 W and efficiency of 99.08%; in comparison with the interleaved high-gain boost converter the results show a response time of 0.1 s for the transferred power, a very low output voltage ripples of 0.001% and 98.37% as efficiency of the chain. The proposed solution can be connected to a grid with a reduction of level of the inverter and active filter.