A novel maximum power point tracking technique based on Rao‐1 algorithm for solar PV system under partial shading conditions.

Summary: The performance of the Photovoltaic (PV) system is highly affected by fluctuating climatic conditions. Due to these changing climatic conditions, the irradiance diminishes, and it results in the non‐linearity in voltage‐power (P‐V) curves of the PV system. Therefore, it is one of the reasons for the occurrence of the multiple peaks on P‐V curves instead of a single peak. Therefore, it is challenging to track the global maximum power point tracking (MPPT) under these circumstances with traditional MPPT techniques viz. perturb and observe (P&O) and fuzzy logic control (FLC). Concerning global MPP tracking, this paper proposes a novel MPPT method based on a Rao‐1 optimization algorithm. The proposed algorithm is used to overcome the drawbacks of the classical P&O, FLC, and PSO based MPPT techniques under partical shading conditions (PSCs) and rapidly changing atmospheric conditions viz. slow convergence speed and oscillation around the MPP. The proposed MPPT tracks the global MPP under any abnormal conditions like PSCs. To show the efficiency of the proposed MPPT a comparative assessment is performed with well‐established MPPT methods in the literature. The simulation results witnessed that the proposed MPPT is more superior in improving the PV system performance under normal as well as under PSCs. The proposed MPPT over the PSO technique decreases the tracking time by 72.7% for pattern 1, 29.8% for pattern 2, 66.7% for pattern 3, 61.9% for pattern 5, 27.8% for pattern 6, and improves the tracking efficiency in all shading patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]