Comparison between P&O and SSO techniques based MPPT algorithm for photovoltaic systems

Solar photovoltaic (SPV) systems are a renewable source of energy that are environmentally friendly and recyclable nature. When the solar panel is connected directly to the load, the power delivered to the load is not the optimal power. It is therefore important to obtain maximum power from SPV systems for enhancing efficiency. Various maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques of SPV systems were proposed. Traditional MPPT techniques are commonly limited to uniform weather conditions. This paper presents a study of MPPT for photovoltaic (PV) systems. The study includes a discussion of different MPPT techniques and performs comparison for the performance of the two MPPT techniques, the P&O algorithm, and salp swarm optimization (SSO) algorithm. MATLAB simulations are performed under step changes in irradiation. The results of SSO show that the search time of maximum power point (MPP) is significantly decreased and the MPP is obtained in the shortest time with high accuracy and minimum oscillations in the generated power when compared with P&O.