Maximum Power Point Tracking using Reactive Control for Heaving Wave Energy Converters

Abstract

A reactive control using MPPT technique is developed for maximizing of the output electrical power. The perturb and observe algorithm searches for optimum value of damping and stiffness coefficients in order to maximize the converted electrical power (Pe). The running mean value of the Pe is calculated in every MPPT control period and updating of the damping and stiffness coefficients are done as per the direction of the Pe. The proposed MPPT is then compared with the resistive loading and approximate complex conjugate control techniques. The results show significant improvements in Pe using the proposed MPPT using reactive control.