A novel maximum power point tracking technique based on extreme value theorem for photovoltaic systems

This paper proposes a new maximum power point tracking method for photovoltaic devices based on extreme value theorem. The proposed method is based on the property that if a real-valued function is continuous in the closed and bounded interval, then it must attain an absolute maximum and an absolute minimum, each at least once. A critical point is an interior point in the domain of a function at which the derivative of the function with respect to the concerned variable is equal to zero or derivative of the function does not exist. In the proposed technique, applying the extreme value theorem, the derivative of the power with respect to the voltage of the photovoltaic device is equated to zero and subsequently the exact value of the voltage of the photovoltaic device at the maximum power point is obtained without any iteration.