MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKING USING MRAC FOR A SOLAR POWER GENERATION SYSTEM

Abstract

The sun is the most abundant and sustainable source of energy. A large amount of energy reaches the surface of the earth from the sun, but from this energy small portion would be sufficient to assure the global estimated power demand. To effectively assure this power demand we are facing different problems to develop the efficient ways to extract, transform, accumulate, and use this available energy at reasonable costs. Many types of research were done to increase the efficiency of extracting maximum power from solar irradiations either mechanically or electrically. Mechanically like using sun-tracking and concentrating solar thermal systems to use solar energy as a source of heat for conventional power generation. Electrically by using Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithms. However, there is a problem associated with these MPPT techniques, which is unwanted oscillation near the maximum power point. In this thesis, the model reference adaptive controller was designed to reduce this unwanted oscillation. To design the proposed controller, model reference adaptive controller, the Lyapunov approach was applied. The proposed controller has been tested and validated using Matlab simulation for various irradiation levels. Finally, we found that the model reference adaptive controller improves settling time and reduces an oscillation in maximum power point