Efficiency Improvement of Commercially Available MPPT Controllers Using Boost Converter

The use of charge controllers in photovoltaic generation systems increases the energy harvested significantly. The most efficient type of charge controller is the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) controller. The commercially available MPPT controller is limited to the input voltage of the solar panel and to the charging voltage of the battery making it inefficient to very low irradiance weather condition. In this paper, it is proposed to increase the efficiency of commercially available MPPT controllers by adding Power Management System that has boost converter and switching circuit that will operate at low irradiance weather conditions like cloudy, sunrise, and sunset. The boost converter is controlled by the PWM function of Arduino Uno to regulate the voltage required of the MPPT controller. The switching circuit will automatically change the direction of current depending on the output of the voltage sensors attached to the PV panel and input of MPPT controller. The results showed that there is 8.77% increase in average power to the system with Power Management System compared to the MPPT controller alone.