Maximum Power Point Tracking by Using Flow Rate Sensing For a Solar Energy Water Pumping System

Abstract

Abstract

This paper proposed a technique to seek the maximum power point of solar cell for a solar energy water pumping
system. A single sensor of flow rate was utilized to reduce the complexity of calculation. The comparison between the current
flow rate value and the prior value was used to search for the maximum power point and the duty cycle of switch of
buck converter was adjusted accordingly. This algorithm has been implemented on a PIC16F877 microcontroller. The proposedtechnique was tested on a prototype system which is composed of a 12-watt solar cell and a 6-watt water pump. The experimental results showed that this technique could effectively search for the maximum power point with the efficiency of the maximumpower point tracking 98.6 percent and 98.3 percent at solar radiation 350 W/m2 and 500 W/m2, respectively.