Cost-effective Perturb and Observe MPPT Method using Arduino Microcontroller for a Standalone Photo Voltaic System

There has been tremendous advancements in the field of electronics recently. This had led to the realization of the hardware for the techniques like Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). Low cost and simplicity are important factors. But hardware implementation of MPPT techniques with Digital Signal Processors (DSP), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and dSPACE controllers are expensive. PIC microcontrollers are relatively cheaper, but coding in PIC for expert systems based MPPT is not easy. These are the driving factors to find a simple and low cost solution. This paper proposes an hardware for MPPT techniques using Arduino Microcontroller which has an added advantage of being an opensource and also its coding resembles a simple C language. Here Perturb and Observe (P&O) type of MPPT has been implemented and tested on a Standalone Photo Voltaic (PV) system. The results confirm that maximum power has been extracted by P&O method irrespective of atmospheric temperature and solar irradiance with the Arduino Microcontroller. Keywords— MPPT, Photovoltaic (PV), Perturb and Observe method (P&O)