Design and realization of an analog integrated circuit for maximum power point tracking of photovoltaic panels

Abstract

The tracking of the maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel is an important part of a PV generation chain. In order to track maximum power from the solar arrays, it is necessary to control the output impedance of the PV panel, so that the circuit can be operated at its Maximum Power Point (MPP), despite the unavoidable changes in the climate conditions such as temperature and Irradiance. A new MPPT analog technique to track the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of PV arrays is proposed. This new technique uses simple and classical functions of electronic circuits. An Off-Grid PV system was considered to apply and validate the proposed new technique. The entire circuit was implemented in circuit-oriented simulator Proteus-ISIS. We present the results associated with the design, the realization, and the experimentation of a PV system equipped with a new analog MPPT command. The obtained results have shown good efficiency of analog technique (more than 98.5%). The second part of the paper consists of the description of the design and the realization of the novel analog MPPT integrated chip. The integrated circuit (IC) was designed and realized using HV CMOS technology 0.35-µm.