Performance analysis of coupled inductor active network converter for photovoltaic energy harvesting system using fuzzy based MPPT control techniques

This paper investigates the performance analysis of coupled inductor Active Network Converter (ANC) for photovoltaic energy harvesting system. The proposed converter has an integrated with two coupled inductors in a single magnetic core which reduces the size of magnetic components and provides high step-up Voltage gain (Gv) without requiring an extreme Duty ratio (D). The voltage conversion ratio of ANC is high and has low switching losses due to the low voltage and current stress of power switches. The Voltage gain characteristic curve of this converter circuit with different turn's ratio (n) has been studied for various duty cycle. The efficiency of this converter is about to 98.73%. Further, this proposed converter is integrated with the Photovoltaic panel for the harvesting of solar energy. The performance of the solar system for extracting the maximum power depends on the solar irradiance (G), cell temperature (T) and the operating point of MPP (Maximum Power Point) with respect to working conditions. Here, the Incremental Conductance (I&C) algorithm and Fuzzy Logic Control (FLC) method are incorporated for finding the MPP under different operating conditions. The Incremental conductance method overcomes the drawbacks of conventional P&O algorithm. The simulation works have been studied under Matlab-Simulink environment. The effectiveness of the FLC technique adopted in this work for finding MPP has been evaluated and the simulation results are compared with IC method. The simulation results show that the FLC method gives a better improvement in the tracking of MPP than I&C method.