- Performances improvement of maximum power point tracking perturb and observe method

In this paper the perturb and observe best operation conditions are investigated in order to identify the edge efficiency performances of this most popular maximum power point tracking technique for photovoltaic applications. It is shown that perturb and observe may guarantee top-level efficiency, provided that a proper predictive and adaptive hill climbing strategy is adopted. The approach proposed in this paper is aimed at realizing' in addition to absolute best tracking performances, high robustness and promptness both in sunny and cloudy weather conditions. The power gain with respect to standard perturb and observe technique is proved by means of simulation results and experimental measurements performed on a low power system. Besides the performance improvements, it is shown that the proposed approach allows possible reduction of hardware costs of analog-to-digital converters used in the maximum power point tracking control circuitry.