Comparison Between Different MPPT Methods Applied to a Three-Port Converter

Abstract

Recently, the interest in renewable energy has gained interest since these sources are promising for generating electricity. Solar energy tops the list of renewable energy sources. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels are used to capture the solar energy radiated from the sun. Since solar energy is unavailable throughout the day, a battery is added. In a PV/battery system, a three-port converter is needed to interface the PV and battery with the load. This paper applies Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) methods to a system with a three-port converter. These methods are Perturb and Observe (P&O) and Incremental Conductance (IC). MATLAB/SIMULINK software is used to perform the simulation. The temperature and irradiance are varied to simulate environmental changes in a real-world environment. Based on the results, the IC method performs slightly better than P&O. This indicates that a three-port converter is more stable regarding environmental changes than regular two-port converters. The usage of a three-port converter has gained recent interest. The significance of this paper is that it compares different MPPT methods applied to a three-port converter to be able to determine the suitable MPPT for a specific application.