Date of Award

8-2020

Degree Name

MS in Electrical Engineering

Department/Program

Electrical Engineering

College

College of Engineering

Advisor

Taufik

Advisor Department

Electrical Engineering

Advisor College

College of Engineering

Abstract

With solar power and other renewables set to take over the market in the coming decades, maximum power point tracking will be essential to optimizing power output. One underserved topic of research is the effect of inductor current ripple on performance of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithms. Many new topologies are focused on decreasing the ripple from PV source to increase efficiency and power output. However, not much has been done to show ripple degrading performance of MPPT algorithms. This study uses a boost converter topology to test the performance of constant duty cycle step Perturb and Observe (PO), Incremental Conductance IC, and Constant Voltage (CV) PID over a range of inductor current ripple factor. Inductor current ripple is controlled solely by changing inductance. This study concluded that all three algorithms were quite robust and affected very little over an inductor current ripple factor range of 20% to 40%. One novel finding was increased duty cycle oscillation when the MPPT update and sample speed was faster than the boost converter response.

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