Distributed photovoltaic solar system architecture with single-power inductor single-power converter and single-sensor single maximum power point tracking controller

This study presents a distributed photovoltaic (PV) solar system architecture with a single-power inductor, single-power converter and single maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller that only requires one sensor. This PV architecture is able to perform MPPT for a multichannel distributed PV system at panel level, cell group level and/or single cell level under mismatching and partial shading conditions. The single power stage is a multiple-input single-inductor boost power converter which operates in continuous conduction mode. This work targets the high-cost and high-complexity issues of module integrated converter (MIC) and sub-MIC PV architectures, which affect their practicality in many applications. The concept and operation of the single-power-converter single-controller single-sensor MPPT architecture is presented, analysed and verified by results obtained from a proof-of-concept experimental prototype.