Abstract: Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy has witnessed double digit growth in the past decade. Maximum power point tracking algorithm (MPPT) keeps the photovoltaic systems continuously delivering the maximum power output to the utility, regardless of the variation in environment condition. To improve the performance of MPPT, a two-level adaptive control architecture is proposed here. System complexity is reduced, control and the uncertainties in the photovoltaic systems are effectively handled. The first level of control is ripple correlation control (RCC) which is an MPPT method copes with many drawbacks of other algorithms and the second level of control is model reference adaptive control (MRAC) which compensates for the undesired characteristic of the photovoltaic power conversion system. By coupling these two control algorithms, the system achieves MPPT with overall system stability. From the results, the proposed control algorithm enables the system to converge to the maximum power point in milliseconds. The system shows no oscillatory response even after there is a change in the environmental conditions.

Keywords: Maximum power point tracking (MPPT), Photovoltaic system, Ripple correlation control (RCC),Model reference adaptive controller(MRAC)