Patent ID: 8704499

Claim:
A method of tracking a maximum power point of a photovoltaic module, comprising: measuring output voltage (v C ) of the photovoltaic module; determining output voltage (e) of an inverter connected to the photovoltaic module; measuring output current (i 1 ) of the inverter connected to the photovoltaic module; defining a variable (z) relating to energy of a capacitor using the measured PV module output voltage; extracting a second harmonic component ({tilde over (z)}) from the defined variable (z); estimating a second harmonic component ({tilde over (p)}) of module output power (p) using the defined variable (z), measured output current (i 1 ) of the inverter, and the determined output voltage (e) of the inverter; multiplying the extracted ({tilde over (z)}) and the estimated ({tilde over (p)}) second harmonic components; extracting a DC component ( {tilde over (p)}{tilde over (z)} DC ) from a product ({tilde over (p)}{tilde over (z)}) of the multiplication of the second harmonic components; and forming a control signal (P;v ref ) for controlling the inverter connected to the photovoltaic module by using the extracted DC component in a PI algorithm.