The compression of MPPT methods in small sized wind power plants

In this paper the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms for wind energy systems arereviewed. As the amounts of power produced in wind power plants is changing due to theinstantaneous changing nature of the wind, it is desirable to determine the one optimal generatorspeed that ensures maximum energy yield. Thus, it is important to include a controller that cantrack the maximum peak regardless of wind speed. Categorizing the MPPT algorithms can bedone regarding whether it has used sensors or not, as well as according to the techniques used tolocate the peak value. The performance of different MPPT algorithms is compared on the basis ofability to achieve the maximum energy yield and various speed responses. According to availablesimulation results in the literature, in cases through which the flexibility and simplicity inimplementations is considered, the perturbation and observation (P&O) method is preferred, butdifficulties in determining the optimum step-size are the restrictions of this method. Due to itssimplicity, the best MPPT method for wind energy systems has found to be the optimal torquecontrol (OTC).