Cosimulation of the maximum power point tracking in photovoltaic systems with Xilinx Zedboard Zynq-7000 FPGA

Solar energy, which is one of the renewable energy sources, is highly preferred in order to meet the increasing energy demand in the world. Solar energy is converted into electrical energy through photovoltaic panels. However, the current and voltage values obtained at the photovoltaic panel output differ as a result of changes in temperature and radiation amounts. As a result, sufficient power cannot be transferred to the load. Maximum power point trackers (MPPT) are used in photovoltaic power generation systems in order to prevent this situation and to ensure that energy is produced from the panels with the highest efficiency. MPPTs enable the current and voltage values obtained from the panel output to work at the maximum power point with various control methods and to transfer power to the load with the least loss. In this study, the MPPT used in a photovoltaic system was designed in Matlab/Simulink environment. Perturb&observe (P&O) algorithm is used on MPPT. The P&O algorithm was designed with the blocks in the Xilinx System Generator (XSG) tool, which was produced by Xilinx for Simulink, and the other parts of the system were designed with Simulink blocks. The simulation of the created system was carried out in the Simulink environment. Then the P&O algorithm was loaded on the Xilinx Zedboard ZYNQ-7000 FPGA board. The P&O algorithm worked on the FPGA and the other parts of the system worked in the Simulink environment and realized the co-simulation phase. As a result, it was seen that the values obtained from the simulation and co-simulation stages were the same.