Single sensor based photovoltaic maximum power point tracking technique for solar water pumping system

The development of photovoltaic (PV) panels has made solar-powered pumps a reality. The pump drivers are usually direct-current (DC) motors which are fed by power electronic converters with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) to extract the whole energy that the PV panels can generate depending on the environmental conditions including irradiation and temperature. The implementation of MPPT algorithm essentially involves sensing both an input current and an input voltage. Understandably, such realization is expensive. In this paper, a solar PV water pumping system based on DC to DC converter as MPPT module is considered. The system consists of a PV array, a DC to DC boost converter and the DC motor coupled to a centrifugal pump. A proposed method is employed to seek the maximum power point using the flow rate obtained from a single sensor. A comparison with conventional hill climbing technique is included in experimental results to prove feasibility of the proposed method.