TYPE Original Research

PUBLISHED 29 August 2024

DOI 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1471499

A model predictive control based

OPEN ACCESS MPPT technique for novel DC-DC
EDITED BY
Praveen Kumar Balachandran,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia
converter and voltage regulation
REVIEWED BY
Ahmed Allehyani,
in DC microgrid
Jeddah University, Saudi Arabia
Musfer Alraddadi,
Yanbu Industrial College, Saudi Arabia
Kunte Abhijit Bhagwan 1, Udaya Bhasker Manthati 1 and
*CORRESPONDENCE
Faisal Alsaif 2*
Faisal Alsaif, 1
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology-Warangal, Warangal, Telangana,
[email protected]
India, 2Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi
RECEIVED 27 July 2024 Arabia
ACCEPTED 12 August 2024
PUBLISHED 29 August 2024

CITATION
Bhagwan KA, Manthati UB and Alsaif F (2024) A
This work presents a system design for extracting maximum power using the
model predictive control based MPPT
technique for novel DC-DC converter and modified maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique and a novel high-gain
voltage regulation in DC microgrid. DC-DC converter, which was then used to supply a microgrid system with a
Front. Energy Res. 12:1471499.
conventional buck converter. We present a novel structure comprising the MPPT,
doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1471499
voltage boosting, and voltage regulating components for a DC microgrid in a
COPYRIGHT
single system. The most important features of a photovoltaic (PV) system include
© 2024 Bhagwan, Manthati and Alsaif. This is an
open-access article distributed under the terms a high-gain converter and maximum PV power extraction; considering these, we
of the Creative Commons Attribution License present a high-gain DC-DC converter that boosts the output voltage to ten times
(CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in
the input voltage. Furthermore, the MPPT technique extracts maximum power
other forums is permitted, provided the original
author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are from the PV panel based on model predictive control through its better transient
credited and that the original publication in this response than the conventional incremental conductance method. The MPPT
journal is cited, in accordance with accepted
approach was tested with both fixed- and variable-step operations, and the
academic practice. No use, distribution or
reproduction is permitted which does not results were compared for load variations. Considering the economics of the
comply with these terms. system, the proposed approach attempts cost reduction by optimizing the
number of sensors to two instead of three. Simulations were conducted
under different environmental conditions using MATLAB-Simulink, and the
performance differences between the conventional incremental conductance
and proposed MPPT-based methods are shown. Next, DC voltage regulation was
implemented for the proposed PV and existing systems by considering different
load and irradiation conditions while maintaining constant temperature. The
simulation results showed the latter system had better performance than the
former under different environmental conditions, with persistent results for
voltage regulation at different load and irradiation conditions.

KEYWORDS

model predictive control, photovoltaic, maximum power point tracking, perturb and
observe method, incremental conductance method, high-gain DC-DC converter,
voltage regulation

Abbreviations: PV, photovoltaic; MPPT, maximum power point tracking; P&O, perturb and observe;
MPC, model predictive control; DC, direct current; VMC, voltage multiplier cell; VMR, voltage multiplier
rectifier; PID, proportional integral derivative; PWM, pulse width modulation; IC, incremental
conductance; MPP, maximum power point.

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1 Introduction sensors, namely, two voltage and one current sensors, thereby
incurring a higher cost.
Solar power is a universal energy source that has stochastic The third aspect of this study is regarding voltage regulation.
behaviors and varies with the intensity of natural light. Solar power The primary function of a boost converter is extracting the
generation entails different components, such as the type of cell, maximum power at a particular duty cycle and voltage. However,
irradiation, temperature, size, and environmental conditions. Solar when this extracted power is meant to be injected into another
panels and DC-DC high-gain converters play vital roles in injecting application or a grid, it is necessary to modulate its voltage
power into a DC microgrid. The traditional maximum power point accordingly. To inject the generated PV power into a grid with
tracking (MPPT) technique involves finding a point on a voltage vs. high quality and improve the PV system efficiency, it is crucial to
current plot at which maximum power can be extracted under the achieve MPPT of the PV system along with voltage regulation.
given environmental conditions. There are several reported MPPT Unfortunately, most studies focus on only one of these aspects,
techniques in literature, such as the perturb and observe (P&O) i.e., MPPT or voltage regulation, instead of addressing both
method and incremental conductance (IC) method (Ram et al., simultaneously (Lupangu and Bansal, 2017). Thus, few
2017; Bollipo et al., 2020a; Kumar et al., 2023; Bollipo et al., 2020b). researchers have explored two-level control where voltage
These methods are differentiated from each other based on the regulation and MPPT are discussed together, as in Ma et al.
accuracy of maximum power tracking as well as its implementation (2020). In Ma et al. (2020), the authors explain a two-stage
in a photovoltaic (PV) system, algorithmic complexity, and converter with cascaded boost and buck operations to provide
measured variables. However, one of the main drawbacks of the maximum power extraction as well as voltage regulation.
P&O method is the failure to adapt to instantaneously changing To achieve voltage regulation, related control methods are
conditions and power loss due to the constantly introduced studied often, such as proportional–integral–differential (PID)
perturbation changes; furthermore, this method is affected by control (Sunddararaj et al., 2021), fuzzy logic control (Kart et al.,
oscillations when operating at the maximum power point (MPP) 2024), feedback linearization control (Sharma and Suhag, 2020), and
(Bollipo et al., 2020a; Mei et al., 2011; Jiang et al., 2013). sliding-mode control (Al-Wesabi et al., 2022; Xie et al., 2020), and
With regard to DC-DC converters, the conventional boost hybrid control (Ibrahim et al., 2024; Suthar et al., 2024; Rafikiran and
converter suffers from instability under practical conditions, Alsaif, 2024). In the present work, a novel model predictive
particularly after experiencing higher duty cycles (Fang et al., controller that is more efficient than other methods is employed
2019; Liu et al., 2019; Basha and Rani, 2020; Tarzamni et al., in a high-gain DC-DC converter for a PV power system (Figure 1).
2023). Different conversion techniques have been noted and Accurate mathematical modeling is required and developed for its
compared in Forouzesh et al. (2017), Xu et al. (2020) along with implementation under varying load conditions.
brief details on their applications to boost the input voltage to the
level required for a microgrid. Switched inductors/capacitors can
also be used to boost the input voltage by 2–3 times maximally 2 Proposed topology
without using higher duty cycles. Fang et al. (2019) described a
cascaded boost converter to amplify the input voltage using a low The main objectives of the proposed work are as follows:
duty cycle. Forouzesh et al. (2017) and Kumar et al. (2020) showed
that the quadratic boost converter provides a higher step-up ratio 1. Implementation of proposed step-up converter topology for
than the switched inductor/capacitor with a higher current stress on solar applications.
its power switch; this stress on the switch deteriorates the efficiency 2. Implementation of MPC-based MPPT through the IC method.
of the converter. 3. Verifications of the topology and control strategy
Another important consideration is the maximum power tracking performances under different environmental conditions.
technique. As mentioned earlier, the P&O method suffers from 4. Verifications of the topology and control strategy
oscillation at the MPP. To counter this problem, Abdel-Salam performances for fixed-step and variable-step changes.
et al. (2020) proposed an improved approach called delta P&O 5. Comparison of MPPT for the IC and proposed methods.
and adaptive step-change method. MPPT without a current sensor 6. Voltage regulation of the proposed PV system through a two-
was proposed by Metry and Balog (2020), where the PV current can stage grid-tied system.
be calculated from a prespecified look-up table using PV voltage
measurements and cell temperature estimates; however, this The two-stage grid-tied converter topology structure is
technique suffers from complexity and reliability problems owing considered for the control of the PV system in this work. The
to difficulties with ambient temperature estimation and dynamic first-stage converter matches the output and load impedances and
model accuracy of the system involving multiple variables. tracks the MPP, while the second-stage converter regulates the
In systems that require multivariable control, finite-set model output voltage to the desired value.
predictive control (FS-MPC) is a desirable solution (Ferreira et al., This converter comprises two inductors that are switched using
2018). MPC-based MPPT has been reported in literature (Abdel- two switches, i.e., MOSFET power switches with three diodes, which
Rahim and Wang, 2020; Xue et al., 2022), and the MPC-based help define the different modes of operation. Additionally, two
MPPT methodology presented by Ferreira et al. (2018) can track the capacitors placed one each on the input and output sides act as
maximum power of a PV module efficiently under various filters to ensure fewer voltage ripples. When this converter is
environmental conditions. However, this scheme uses three operated in continuous mode, then are two operating modes

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FIGURE 1
Novel high-gain DC-DC converter circuit for photovoltaic (PV) systems.

FIGURE 2
Mode-I and Mode-II operations of the high-gain DC-DC converter.

FIGURE 3
Waveforms of (i) current through the inductor and (ii) output voltage.

defined by S = 1 and 0 for the switch ON and OFF conditions, condition where diodes D1 and D0 remain turned off,
respectively. as shown in Figure 2. Applying Kirchhoff’s law to this circuit,
Mode-I Operation (SW1 = SW2 = 1): When switches S1 we have
and S2 are both turned on, the inductors L1 and L2
VL1(t)  Vpv  VL2(t),
are charged by the supply voltage. This leads to a

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FIGURE 4
Different methods of implementing the proposed maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique.

FIGURE 5
Block diagrams of (i) voltage regulation of the PV system and (ii) model predictive control (MPC) implementation.

dVpv Mode-II Operation (SW1 = SW2 = 0): When switches S1 and S2 are
ipv(t)  C1* + 2*iL1,
dt both turned off, the inductors start discharging to the load alongside the
dV0 supply voltage. In this condition, diodes D2 and D0 are turned on to
C2*  ic0  −V0
R.
dt provide a path to load while D1 is turned off, as shown in Figure 2.

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FIGURE 6
Block diagram of implementation of the MPC-based MPPT technique.

Based on the analyses in Modes I and II as well as application of 2.2 Capacitor design
inductor volt-second balance and charge balance to the equations
obtained from the two modes of operation, the input–output From the waveform shown in Figure 3(ii) and the above
relationship is further derived. derivations, the capacitor values are obtained using the duty
cycle, output voltage, sample time, and capacitor voltage ripple.
VL1(t)  VL2(t)  Vpv − V02,
V0
dVpv ΔVo   *DTs,
ipv  C1 * + iL1, 2 RC0
dt
V0
dV0 C0   *DTs.
C2*  ic2  iL1 − V0
R. 2 RΔVo
dt
The output capacitor is designed by considering the output
Following the above analyses, the input and output relationship
voltage waveform over one period and the expression for voltage
is obtained as
ripple derived above.
1+D
V0   *Vinput. (1)
1−D

Then, the parameters of the high-gain converter are

3 Different MPPT techniques
defined, and their values are set based on how much ripple can
There are many MPPT techniques in literature for extracting the
be tolerated.
maximum power values efficiently from PV panels using different
types of converters. These converters act as interfaces between the
PV system and load or grid. There are two types of algorithms for
2.1 Inductor design MPPT (Figure 4), where the first involves changing the duty cycle for
optimization and the second uses the voltage or current reference
There are two inductors in the proposed converter, and both of
from MPPT along with different control techniques for
these are symmetric and identical. To determine the inductor values,
optimization.
the current waveforms over one period are considered and equations
The different MPPT techniques available include the P&O, IC,
are derived using the input voltage, duty cycle, inductor current
artificial neural network, and open-circuit voltage methods, among
ripple, and sample time (Ts).
others; all of these techniques can be compared in terms of
Vpv hardware, algorithm complexity, and use as standalone or
2ΔiL   *DTs, integrated systems. However, among these techniques, the P&O
L
Vpv and IC methods are used commonly even though they are inefficient
L  L1  L2   *DTs. and expensive, respectively.
2ΔiL

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FIGURE 7
Flowchart of the algorithm for MPC-based MPPT.

3.1 Proposed MPPT technique The main advantages of predictive control are its intuitive nature
and simple concepts; as predictive control schemes avoid cascaded
The proposed method involves predictive control and is mainly structures for linearization, they provide quick transient responses.
characterized by use of the system model to predict the future values Moreover, the system can include model non-linearities for
of the controllable variables. Using this information on the future improved operation under all conditions. MPC is implemented
values, optimal actuation is achieved as per the predefined criteria. using the following steps:

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FIGURE 8
DC-DC buck converter circuit for voltage regulation of the PV system.

TABLE 1 Parameters and ratings.

S.No Parameter Rating

1 PV voltage (VPV) (19–30) V

2 PV current (IPV(max)) 7.8 A

3 PV capacitance (CPV), output capacitance (Cout), filter capacitance (Cbuck) 220 µF

4 Inductors (L1, L2, and Lbuck) 3 mH

5 Load resistance (Rload) 10 Ω

FIGURE 9
Open-loop simulation of the high-gain DC-DC converter.

Step 1: The system model is defined and used to predict Step 3: Once the cost function is defined, the discrete model of the
the future behaviors of the variables up to the system is derived by predicting the future behaviors of the
time horizon. controlled variables.
Step 2: The cost function is defined in terms of the desired Step 4: The system optimizes the performance by minimizing the
behaviors of the system. value of the cost function.

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FIGURE 10
Output voltage of the high-gain DC-DC converter.

FIGURE 11
Fixed-step operation of the high-gain DC-DC converter of the PV system.

Figure 5 shows the block diagrams for voltage regulation of the function J. Here, N is the predefined horizon time within which the
PV system and MPC implementation. The basic definition of the control actions are implemented. Further constraints and weighting
cost function is the error between the reference and predicted values factors can be added to the system as per the control requirement.
of the quantity to be controlled. These quantities include the load With the inclusion of weighting factors, the cost function can be
current, load torque, and speed; sometimes, these quantities are written as below for current control of a neutral point converter.
multiplied by a weighting factor according to their importance.  
Given the discrete prediction model of the form J  |iα* − iαp | + iβ* − iβp  + λ |Vc1p − Vc2p |.

X (k + 1)  Ax(k) + Bu(k), Here, i represents the α and β component currents, λ is the

y(k)  Cx(k) + Du (k), weighting factor, and the terms with the superscript p represent the
predicted values. It has been mentioned previously that deciding
the cost function can be written as the variables for MPC is a crucial step. In the solar power system
J  f (x(k), u(k) . . . . . . . . . ..u(N + k)). or solar panel, the PV voltage and current variables must be
chosen carefully. However, in the case of MPC, the PV current
This equation considers the references, future states, and future of the system must be considered and adjusted to extract the
actions, and the system control is based on minimizing the cost maximum power.

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FIGURE 12
Output and input power values for fixed-step operation.

FIGURE 13
Output and input voltages for fixed-step operation.

3.2 MPC-based MPPT then developed using the forward Euler method for the on and off
state operation equations. These discrete model equations are
MPC is a type of regulation that depends on the parameters as follows:
of the DC-DC converter. It treats the DC-DC converter as a 2*Ts
finite set of linear models, where each model represents the I1PV(K+1)  *Vpv + Ipv(k), (2)
L
switching states. These switching states are calculated using
Ts
MPC, resulting in minimization of the cost function. Reducing I0PV(K+1)  *Vpv(k)-V0 + Ipv(k), (3)
L
the cost simply means that the errors in the controllable
variables are reduced. Then, these switching states of the where I1PV(K+1) and I0PV(K+1) are the predicted values of the PV
minimized cost function are applied to the DC-DC converter. current during the on and off states, respectively; VPV and V0 are the
When operating this converter, the system works in the PV and output voltages, respectively; Ts is the sampling time; L is an
continuous mode with two state variables. A discrete model is inductor representing both L1 and L2, which are equal.

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FIGURE 14
Inductor current during fixed-step operation.

FIGURE 15
Change in the output power as the irradiation changes from 1,000 W/m2 to 800 W/m2 at t = 0.5 s.

As noted earlier for the types of algorithms used for MPPT, the minimize the error. The cost function is used for optimization and is
first type is used for optimization. Here, the reference current is given by
obtained using the conventional IC method, and MPC is used to gα(0,1)  |Iref - Iα PV|,
generate the predicted values of the controllable variables. Figure 6
depicts the basic scheme of the control algorithm that uses the where g is the cost function, Iref is the reference current, and
adaptive IC and prediction blocks based on Equations 2, 3 to IαPV is the PV current. The current reference Iref is generated
generate the reference and next-step PV currents, respectively. using the IC method. The pictorial description of the overall
The third block is an optimization step that generates switching process for the fixed-step and variable-step operations is
pulses such that the difference between the two currents is presented in Figure 7.
minimized, which is simply the optimization of the cost function. In the MPC-based MPPT algorithm, the first step
From Equations 2, 3, it is clear that three quantities must be sensed, involves sensing Ipv and Vpv. Next, the conventional IC method
namely Vpv, Ipv, and Vout, to determine the predictive values of the is used to generate the reference current. Through this algorithm,
PV currents. However, Equation 1 can be used as a voltage observer the converter starts tracking the maximum power. The
to calculate the output voltage using Vpv and duty cycle data; this perturbation size Z shown in the flow chart is fixed or adaptive
reduces the number of sensors to two, which in turn reduces the cost and is given by
of the system.
 
 ΔI 
The next step in MPC is optimization, where the possible future Z  C  .
states can be used to optimize and select the optimum values that ΔD

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FIGURE 16
Simulation of the variable-step operation of the PV system.

FIGURE 17
Output power of the variable-step operation under constant temperature and irradiation.

Here, C is scaling factor, ΔI is the change in measured PV 4 Voltage regulation of the proposed
current between the present and previous values, and ΔD is the PV system for microgrid application
difference in reference current between the present and previous
states. The fixed-step operation can be understood as the value of Z Previously, the novel high-gain DC-DC converter and MPPT
being constant. Owing to the constant value, the increment or technique were explained; accordingly, the next step involves
decrement is always same irrespective of requirement. However, extending the proposed method by adding a DC-DC buck
in the case of adaptive operation, the value of Z is formulated and converter to regulate the PV system voltage to the required bus
depends on the change between the reference and predicted PV output voltage that can be maintained under time-varying
currents. Given such an adjustment in the value of Z, the responses irradiation and variable-load conditions. This overall structure is
to environmental changes are rapid and more efficient. a two-stage grid-tied converter.

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FIGURE 18
(i) Output responses for variable-step operation with change in irradiation at t = 0.5 s. (ii) Output power during variable-step operation with change in
irradiation at t = 0.5 s.

The development of renewable energy sources like 4.1 Design of the DC-DC buck converter
solar energy as widespread and clean sources has attracted
immense amounts of scientific and industrial interest in When designing the buck converter, some parameters like the
recent years. The applications of distributed PV systems and output voltage and current of the high-gain DC-DC converter are
DC microgrids have increased the utilization of solar assumed to be bound within particular ranges. The output voltage of
energy. Meanwhile, advancements in power electronic the buck converter is optimized to the bus voltage using PI control of
technologies have further extended the research boundaries a specific load (resistive). After considering all the parameters, the
of PV systems and improved the efficiency of energy operation is regarded to be continuous mode. The conventional
conversion. However, rapid changes in environmental formulas of the inductor current and output voltage ripples are used
conditions still affect the efficiency and stability of PV to calculate the values of the inductors and capacitors. These are
systems. In addition, to inject the generated PV power into a given by the following equations.
grid with high quality, the output voltage of the PV system needs To find the inductor value, we consider ΔIL = (Vin(max) - Vout)
to be regulated. Hence, PV systems must be robust to MPPT and ·D/(fs * L) such that
output voltage regulation. The circuit diagram for voltage (Vin( max )- Vout) *Duty
Lmin  .
regulation of the proposed system is shown in Figure 8. f s *ΔIL

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FIGURE 19
Simulation of voltage regulation of the proposed PV system using a DC-DC buck converter.

FIGURE 20
Voltage regulation of the PV system for varying load and irradiation conditions.

To find the output capacitor value, we consider ΔVc = ΔIL/(8fs · designed to satisfy the high-frequency switching action. Then, the
Cout(min)) such that outer loop is designed to improve the dynamic performance of the
DC-DC buck converter. The state-space model is required for the
Cout( min )  ΔIL  (8f s ·ΔVc ).
control analysis, where the state vector is given by

i
4.2 PI-based voltage regulation X ,
v

The control scheme for output voltage regulation of the PV where i is the inductor current and v is the capacitor voltage.
system is as follows. When designing the control loop, two levels of This results in two possible matrices depending on whether the
loops are considered. First, the PI controller in the inner loop is switch is on or off. The switch state is given by the subscript j, which

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FIGURE 21
Output power at the bus and PV power under varying load and irradiation conditions.

FIGURE 22
Output current at the under varying load and irradiation conditions.

is set to 1 when the control is on and 2 when the control is off. The 4.2.1 Outer loop design
state equation of the DC-DC buck converter is given by The outer loop is the voltage control loop, whose reference
voltage is the bus voltage. The PI control law for voltage can be
x_ (t)  Ax(t) + Bj for j  1, 2,
written as
where k
Iref  K.P . Vref – Vc(i) + Ki i0
Vref– Vc(k).
−1RC 1C Vin/L
A , B1  B2  [0].
−1/L −r/L 0
4.2.2 Inner loop design
Using the averaging method, we have The inner loop is the current control loop that is managed by the
PI controller; here, the reference current is generated using the outer
x_ (t)  (dA1 + (1-d)A2 ) X(t) + dB1 + (1-d)B2 . loop. The PI control law for current can be written as

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FIGURE 23
Comparison between the proposed MPC-based MPPT and incremental conductance methods.

Dduty  KpIref– iL(i) + Ki 

k
Iref– iL(k). 5.2 Application of high-gain DC-DC
i0
converter and MPC-based MPPT to
The values of the constants are found by trial and error methods
PV systems
for both loops.
Herein, we demonstrate the application of the new MPC-based
MPPT technique to a PV system based on the operation type as fixed
5 Results and discussion or variable step. Additionally, the output power comparison
is presented.
The simulation results are primarily divided into three parts as
follows: open-loop operation of the high-gain DC-DC converter; 5.2.1 Fixed-step operation
application of the high-gain DC-DC converter to the PV system; The PV panel used in the simulation is inbuilt and present in the
voltage regulation of the PV system using the DC-DC buck simulation library under the name “1soltech-1STH-215-P”. The
converter. All the parameter ratings used in the simulations are inputs to this block were the temperature and irradiation, which
shown in Table 1. were set to 25°C and 1,000 W/m2, respectively. The schematic of this
simulation is depicted in Figure 11. This operation configuration is
mostly concerned with power drawn using MPPT, but the system
5.1 Open-loop operation has a novel DC-DC converter that boosts the input voltage
efficiently. The duty cycle was set as 0.65. Figure 12 shows the
The high-gain DC-DC converter was simulated in MATLAB input and output power trends for the fixed-step operation, while
2016 and designed to boost the input voltage by 10 times. It can Figure 13 shows the input and output voltage trends under this
operate at an efficiency of around 93%. configuration.
Figure 9 shows the schematic for the simulation of the open- The parameters are designed with respect to the inductor
loop operation of the high-gain DC-DC converter at a duty cycle current shown in Figure 14 for the fixed-step operation. A
of 0.65. Analytically, the circuit is shown to boost the input magnified portion of this curve is highlighted by the red circle.
voltage by up to 4.71 times. The magnified output voltage signal is Next, we examined the system response to variation in irradiation
shown in Figure 10, where the load resistance is observed to be from 1,000 W/m2 to 800 W/m2 under fixed-step operation; these
approximately 10 Ω. results are shown in Figure 15. Under fixed-step operation, the

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output power of the system is approximately 138–140 W; if this application, simplicity, and cost reduction. The proposed MPPT
system were to be implemented under variable-step operation, there achieves similar results as those in literature with only two sensors,
would be flexibility in choosing the step size as per requirement. This namely one voltage and one current sensors. The MPC-MPPT has
flexibility allows the system to produce more output power. two operating modes based on fixed and variable step changes.
The fixed-step operation was analyzed for different step changes
5.2.2 Variable-step operation between 0.02 and 0.05, and the results show significant differences
As explained earlier, variable-step operation offers more and better results at a step value of 0.05. The variable-step operation
flexibility and superior performance to fixed-step operation. The was also evaluated and shown to be advantageous over fixed-step
parameters are considered in this configuration are similar to those operation as the step size can be changed as per requirement. The
used previously. Figure 16 shows the schematic for variable-step second part of this work was concerned with voltage regulation of
operation under a constant temperature of 25°C and irradiation of the PV system to allow injection of the excess available power into a
1,000 W/m2 (Figure 17). The variable-step operations under a grid or any to other application. Despite assessing the system for
change in irradiation from 1,000 W/m2 to 800 W/m2 are shown variations in the irradiation (900 W/m2 to 1,000 W/m2) and load
in Figure 18. (5–4.17 Ω) conditions, it was shown that the system managed to
maintain the reference output voltage (24 V). The PV power
increased as the irradiation increased, while the output power
5.3 Voltage regulation of the proposed only increased when the load was reduced. As a result, the
PV system overall system performance was efficient, which is expected to
improve the power quality supplied to DC microgrids. Our
The main principle of regulating the output voltage of a high- future work is aimed at validating the proposed concepts through
gain DC-DC converter is to supply the excess available power to experiments.
different applications through a DC microgrid. To regulate the
voltage, a two-stage converter was developed, where the first
stage was the high-gain DC-DC converter and the second stage Data availability statement
was a cascaded buck converter (Figure 19).
The analysis for this system is categorized under two scenarios, The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be
where the irradiation and load values are varied. Figure 20 shows the made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
result for first changing the irradiation from 900 W/m2 to 1,000 W/
m2 at t = 0.4 s, followed by changing the load resistance from 5 Ω to
4.17 Ω at t = 0.5 s. The changes caused by the irradiation and load Author contributions
resistance are reflected in the output voltage and power waveforms.
From this figure, it is noted that the change in load at t = 0.5 s reflects KB: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis,
a small dip attributable to the reference value over a short time; here, investigation, methodology, software, validation, and
the reference value is 24 V. Next, the changes in the output power of writing–original draft. UM: conceptualization, data curation,
the bus and PV system are shown in Figure 21. The nature of the project administration, resources, supervision, validation,
output power is also influenced by the current, as seen from the visualization, and writing–review and editing. FA: funding
output current in Figure 22. acquisition, project administration, resources, supervision,
validation, and writing–review and editing.

5.4 Comparison between the proposed

MPC-MPPT and IC methods Funding
Figure 23 compares the output power and voltage values of the The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for
proposed and conventional IC methods. It is seen from the power the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
generated at an irradiation intensity of 1,000 W/m2 that the
proposed technique has better performance than the IC approach.
Acknowledgments
6 Conclusion This work was supported by the Researchers Supporting Project
(no. RSPD2024R646) of King Saud University, Riyadh,
Solar energy is one of the most prominent energy sources, and its Saudi Arabia.
efficient utilization has become a matter of important concern in
recent times. In this work, we propose a new MPC-based MPPT
technique with a high-gain DC-DC converter. We show through the Conflict of interest
results that MPPT with the MPC-based approach provides better
transient responses. Similar advantages and results were observed The authors declare that the research was conducted in the
even when different environmental conditions were considered. The absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be
selection of a control strategy for MPPT depends on its ease of construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Frontiers in Energy Research 16 frontiersin.org

Bhagwan et al. 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1471499

Publisher’s note organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors, and the
reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or
and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated endorsed by the publisher.

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