Comparative Study of Intelligent and Classical MPPT Techniques Applied to Solar Battery Charger

Renewable solar energy is an excellent alternative to conventional energy sources and, recently, it has shown remarkable growth on electrical power grid in various countries around the world. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) has critical importance in solar energy generation since it increases the system's efficiency in many scenarios. Photovoltaic modules (PV) are influenced by environmental factors such as temperature and solar irradiation density, changing the amount of energy generated throughout the day. In order to extract the maximum available power from a PV, it’s necessary to use the MPPT technique, which considers the system’s nonlinearities. Maximum power tracking (MPP) is done by tuning the duty cycle of the DC-DC converter, so that the PV's terminal voltage is modulated to match the environmental conditions. This tuning, generally, is dependent on sensor readings. Normally, only the module’s voltage and current sensors are used, due to the low cost and ease of acquisition of these signals. However, intelligent techniques demand the usage of temperature and irradiation sensors, increasing the complexity of the system’s implementation. The use of intelligent control techniques applied to the energy generation system has had a notable presence in recent publications. The high efficiency obtained from its application demonstrates that the use of intelligent systems in the decision-making process is a useful tool in obtaining maximum generation power. The objective of the present study is the development and simulation via MATLAB/SIMULINK of a battery charging system with solar energy, which consists of a PV, a Buck converter, a 12V battery, and the MPPT controller. The intelligent fuzzy logic MPPT technique (FLS) and the classical incremental conductance technique (INC) will be compared, both techniques using only voltage and current measurements.