Study and Optimization of a Photovoltaic Mill System Functioning on the Course of the Sun

This paper dealt with the optimization of the performance of a photovoltaic mill system operating on the sun race. Depending on the characteristics of the powered load which is a DC motor driving a grain mill and on the weather conditions (temperature and illumination), we noted a very big difference between the potential maximum power and that actually transferred to the load. In order to improve the overall efficiency of the system, we use an adaptation circuit consisting of a boost converter controlled by a numerical MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) command. With the Perturb & Observe (P & O) algorithm, the MPPT control measure the photocurrent, the photo tension and the power released by the photovoltaic generator. From this result, the MPPT control adjusts the duty cyclic of the converter to bring the system to the optimum operating point. Hence, using MATLAB/Simulink software, we did the modeling and the simulation of the system which is composed by a PV generator, a boost converter, a Pulse Width Modulation and a DC motor.