Performance Analysis of a Two-Stage Converter for Solar PV Systems

The solar based power generation has a significant role all over the world. It has the distinct features like cleanliness and low maintenance costs. However, the solar based power generation is severely affected by the atmospheric solar irradiation fluctuations. Therefore, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is necessary in view of enhancing the energy efficiency of the solar PV system. This paper majorly focuses on the solar fed two-stage converter for power system applications. It includes the first stage boost converter (BC) besides the second stage high gain dc-dc converter (HGC). The first stage converter is intended to track peak power from the solar photovoltaic (PV) panel. The P-V as well as I-V characteristics and also MPPT curves of a 230 W solar panel are shown for various solar irradiations. Moreover, this paper highlights the novel beta MPPT algorithm besides the incremental conductance (INC) and perturbation & observation (P&O) algorithms. The beta algorithm has exhibited the dominant dynamics with a transient settling time of 0.1 msec as compared to 0.4 msec and 0.25 msec in case of the INC & P&O MPPT algorithms. The second stage HGC can effectuate the good voltage regulation besides the excellent line and load regulations. The exhaustive simulation results of the voltage mode control (VMC) based HGC are presented in terms of the figure of merits (FOMs) such as transient voltage deviation (TVD) and transient settling time (TST). The VMC is superior with converter dynamics of less than 25 msec as compared to few sec in case of the open-loop operation. The simulation is performed in MATLAB/Simulink as well as PSIM softwares. © 2023 School of Science, IHU. All rights reserved.