Design of a charge controller based on SEPIC and buck topology using modified Incremental Conductance MPPT

Design and simulation of a fast, efficient and cost effective charge controller for Photovoltaic (PV) System is presented. To harness maximum power from the PV panel, the charge controller is equipped with Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) feature. An efficient algorithm for MPPT is developed combining the Constant Voltage (CV) MPPT and the Incremental Conductance (IncCond) MPPT method. The new method, unlike CV, can obtain the actual power from PV and work faster than IncCond. The open circuit voltage, V_oc, needs to be taken only once in order to minimize the power loss. The performance of this charge controller is demonstrated via the simulation in Powersim (PSIM) using the parameters of a practical solar panel (Solarex MSX-60). Furthermore, this paper delineates elementary concepts of PV system so as to help beginners get a strong basic idea about PV systems and MPPT.