Electro-mechanical Maximum Power Point Tracking of Photovoltaic System

This paper is concerned with optimisation of the power produced by a photovoltaic (PV) panel through designing, building and implementing maximum power point tracking (MPPT). In the literature, the MPPT has been normally approached either electronically (using a DC-to-DC converter) or mechanically (controlling the orientation of a PV panel). In this paper, these two approaches are combined to yield more power. To this end, for a given PV panel (available at the first author's institution) which is already equipped with a mechanical tracking device, a Buck (DC-to-DC) converter is designed to improve the power saving which could be achieved by the mechanical tracking alone. Also, new electronic and mechanical MPPT methods are developed, and their combination, so-called electro-mechanical MPPT, is tested in a real environment to verify its usefulness.