A GSO -based maximum power point tracking algorithm for photovoltaic systems

The paper presents a new MPPT method based on Golden-Section Optimization (GSO) technique for photovoltaic systems. The GSO-based MPPT converges to the MPP by interval shrinking. Initially, two points have been selected from the search space that is known, evaluated then a new point is accordingly generated. At given iteration the algorithm has a new narrowed interval bounded by the new point and one of the initial points according to the evaluation results. The algorithm stops iterating when the interval is small enough and the PV is forced to operate at the average value of the last found interval without perturbing either the voltage or the duty cycle. This makes the PV system converges rapidly to the MPP and without voltage or power oscillations around the maximum power point (MPP), thereby low energy waste. Results show that, the proposed MPPT algorithm uses a few arithmetic operations and tracks rapidly and accurately the MPP of PV systems under fast changing conditions and partial shading.